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GUSTAVE    FLAUBERT 


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^USTAVE    FLAUBERT 

AS    SEEN    IN    HIS    WORKS 
AND     CORRESPONDENCE 

BY 

JOHN  CHARLES   TARVER 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

MDCCCXCV 

'j<.kf 


DEDICATED 
TO    THE    MEMORY    OF 

T.  H.  M.  S. 


PREFACE 

My  aim  in  the  following  pages  has  been  to  place  the  per- 
sonality of  Gustave  Flaubert  vividly  before  my  readers.  It 
was  through  his  letters,  rather  than  through  his  works,  that 
I  became  interested  in  him,  and  my  original  intention  was 
to  make  a  volume  of  translations  of  selected  letters ;  so  that 
others  might  be  impressed  in  the  same  way  as  myself.  I 
found,  however,  that  without  continual  references  to  his 
works,  not  all  of  which  are  translated  into  English,  his 
letters  would  be  unintelligible,  and  so  gi*adually  the  book 
assumed  its  present  form. 

I  have  done  my  best  to  avoid  mere  gossip  about  his 
private  life,  holding  with  him  that  an  artisfs  privacy  should 
be  respected  ;  and  esteeming  this  to  be,  above  all,  a  sound 
maxim,  when  so  many  personal  acquaintances  are  still  alive, 
as  in  the  present  case.  Thus  I  did  not  look  for  facts  which 
have  not  already  appeared  in  print.  My  chief  authorities 
are  the  author's  own  works  and  letters ;  but  I  have  made 
use  of  the  introduction  written  by  Madame  Commanville  to 
the  first  volume  of  her  imcle's  letters ;  also  of  the  critical 
and  personal  notice  written  by  Guy  de  Maupassant,  and 
printed  with  the  volume  of  letters  addressed  to  George 
Sand.  I  am  indebted  to  Madame  Commanville  for  per- 
mission to  make  use  of  these  documents.     She   has   been 


X  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

kind  enough  to  read  through  the  ms.,  and  in  every  way  to 
help  me.     I  have  to  thank  her  also  for  the  illustrations. 

In  one  case  I  have  had  to  break  my  rule  of  making 
Flaubert  write  his  own  story.  I  have  made  use  of  the 
Souvenirs  LUUraires  of  Maxime  Ducamp ;  in  citing  him  I 
have,  except  by  inadvertence,  used  inverted  commas.  He 
is  not  considered  an  unimpeachable  authority  by  the  family 
of  Flaubert. 

Again,  in  the  case  of  what  with  any  other  man  would 
have  been  most  private  and  most  sacred — his  love-letters. 
They  seemed  to  me  more  illustrative  of  Flaubert's  devotion 
to  literature  than  any  other  of  his  letters;  to  omit  them 
would  have  been  to  omit  what  is  most  striking  in  his  cor- 
respondence ;  and  as  both  they  and  Maxime  Ducamp's 
account  of  the  lady  to  whom  they  were  written  had  already 
been  published,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  ran  no  risk  of  being 
charged  with  indiscretion  in  translating  them,  and  citing 
Maxime  Ducamp,  whose  book  had  not  been  translated  when 
I  wrote. 

I  append  a  list  of  the  works  of  Flaubert.  The  volume 
entitled  Par  les  champs  et  par  les  greves,  as  also  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,  were  published  after  the  author''s  death  ;  and 
any  defects  in  them  may  be  attributed  to  the  want  of  his 
revision. 

In  translating  I  have  found  a  special  difficulty  with  the 
words  '  bourgeois'  and  '  bete.'  They  are  much  in  Flaubert's 
mouth  ;  the  former  was  to  him  in  literature,  art,  and  morality 
what  a  '  snob '  was  to  Thackeray ;  the  latter  is  something 
different  from  our  '  stupid ' :  '  betise '  is  often  noisy,  pushing, 
self-confident,   superfluously   energetic :    as   a   rule,  I   have 


PREFACE  xi 

found  '  inane '  and  '  inanity '  come  nearest  to  the  idea  in- 
tended to  be  conveyed ;  but  I  despair  of  having  always 
reproduced  Flauberfs  indignation. 

I  am  afraid  numerous  Gallicisms  still  remain  in  spite  of 
careful  elimination,  especially  in  the  order  of  the  words.  I 
crave  the  indulgence  of  readers  for  these  and  other  defects ; 
by  becoming  habituated  to  another  language  a  translator 
ceases  to  be  duly  sensitive  to  the  smaller  points  in  which  it 
differs  from  his  own. 

In  addition  to  Madame  Commanville,  I  owe  much  grati- 
tude to  her  friend,  Mademoiselle  Marechal,  who  helped  at  an 
early  stage  of  the  work  to  keep  me  clear  of  errors. 

The  book  is  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  one  friend ;  it 
owes  its  existence  to  the  ever-helpful  and  active  sympathy 
of  another. 

J.  C.  TARVER. 


LIST  OF  FLAUBERT'S  WORKS. 

Madame  Bovary. 
Salammbo. 

L' Education  Sentimentale. 
La  Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine. 

Trois  Contes.    (Un  Coeur  simple,  Saint  Julian  THospitalier, 
Herodias.) 
*Bouvard  et  Pecuchet. 
*Par  les  champs  et  par  les  graves. 
*Lettres   a   George    Sand,    avec    une    etude   par   Guy   de 

Maupassant. 
*Correspondance.     Tomes  i.,  ii.,  in.,  iv. 
Le  Candidal.     Comedie  en  quatre  actes. 

*  These  were  published  after  the  author's  death. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY  NOTE,           ....  XV 

I.    CHILDHOOD SCHOOL     DAYS LETTERS    TO     ERNEST 

CHEVALIER          .....  I 

II.    THE     LAW     STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE     WITH     HIS 

SISTER,  .  .  .  .19 

HI.    ILLNESS MAXIME    DUCAMP,                ...  32 

IV.    CROISSET DEATH THE    MIDDLE-CLASS    PERSON,       .  37 

V.    LOVE — LOUIS    BOUILHET PARODY,                    .                   .  46 

VI.    THE     PATH     OF     LOVE     NOT     SMOOTH LETTER     TO 

MRS.    TENNANT,                   ....  59 

VII.    TOUR    IN    BRITTANY — STYLE,             ...  69 

VIII.    THE    DEATH    OF    ALFRED    LE    POITTEVIN,       .                   .  79 

IX.    THE    'ST.    ANTHONY,'  .  .  .  .82 

X.    THE    EAST,                 .....  lOI 

XI.    LIFE    AT    CROISSET — MADAME    LOUISE   COLET,               .  122 

XII.    'MADAME    BOVARY,'                .                   .                   .                   .  156 

XIII.  THE    MAKING  OF    '  MADAME    BOVARY  ' THE   PROSE- 

CUTION, .  .  .  .  .196 

XIV.  '  SALAMMBO,'            .....  202 

XV.    THE     '  EDUCATION     SENTIMENTALE  ' LETTERS      TO 

TWO  LADIES RELIGION,                  .                   .                   .  220 

xiii 


xiv  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

xvi.  death  of  louis  bouilhet his  artistic  ideals 

— Flaubert's  letter  to  the  town  council 

OF  ROUEN,  .....  238 

XVII.    THE     '  EDUCATION     SENTIMENTALE  ' THE    FRANCO- 
PRUSSIAN     WAR LETTERS    TO    GEORGE     SAND 

DEATH  OF  HIS  MOTHER,  .  .  .  25I 

XVIII.    THE     THREE      SHORT      STORIES ST.     JULIAN     THE 

HOSPITABLE,       .....  269 

XIX.    LETTERS  TO  GEORGE  SAND — HER  DEATH,    .  .  281 

XX.    LETTERS  TO  GUV  DE  MAUPASSANT  AND  OTHERS,         .  29O 

XXI.    '  BOUVARD  ET  PECUCHET,'  .  .  3OI 

INDEX,      ......  359 


INTRODUCTORY   NOTE 

The  man  whose  life  forms  the  subject  of  the  following  volume 
was  a  man  to  whom  truth  seemed  the  most  sacred  of  all  obliga- 
tions. To  attempt  to  portray  his  life  and  not  to  indicate  wherein 
and  why  the  portrait  might  be  judged  to  deviate  from  the 
strictest  rectitude  in  the  matter  of  truth,  would  be  to  dishonour 
the  memory  of  the  man  himself,  to  assume  that  he  would  be 
content  to  sail  under  colours  that  were  not  his  own,  that  he 
would  disavow  his  own  personality  in  order  to  gain  the  popular 
favour. 

In  transferring  the  personality  of  any  man  from  one  nationality 
to  another,  we  are  at  once  encountered  with  a  difficulty.  It  is 
possible  by  too  strict  a  fidelity  to  mere  letters  to  give  a  dishonest 
portrait.  What  is  indecent  in  England  is  venial  in  France ; 
on  the  other  hand,  France  classes  with  improprieties  many 
features  in  the  ordinary  commerce  of  English  society.  There 
are  those  Englishmen  who  look  to  France  to  supply  them  with 
unclean  details,  which  they  believe  themselves  to  be  unable  to 
enjoy  in  the  literature  of  their  own  country — to  whom  Zola  is 
'  hot,'  Daudet  '  warm.'  To  place  Flaubert  anywhere  within  the 
range  of  this  sort  of  appreciation  would  be  to  misrepresent  him. 

Further,  in  dealing  with  his  correspondence  one  fact  has 
always  to  be  remembered  :  that  of  the  four  volumes  of  letters 
which  have  been  published,  no  single  letter  was  written  by  Flaubert 
with  the  idea  that  it  would  or  could  at  any  time  appear  in  print. 

There  are  many  of  us  who  write  letters,  who  tell  stories  in 
private,  whose  publication  would  be  an  outrage  on  public 
decency.  There  is  one  rule  for  the  conversation  of  the 
smoking-room,  another  for  dinner  and  dessert,  yet  another  for 
the  magazine  article.  Freedom  of  language,  and  violence  of 
expression,  permissible  in  private  correspondence  with  a  very 
intimate  friend,  would  be  justly  stigmatised  as  Hbellous  or  coarse 


xvi  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

in  works  intended  for  publication.  Therefore,  while  enough  has 
been  shown  of  the  earlier  letters  to  indicate  the  impetuous 
imagination  of  the  youth  afire  with  great  thoughts,  to  whom  the 
ordinary  rules  of  conventional  society  were  less  than  the  stubble 
which  we  tread  in  September,  the  present  editor  has  done  his 
best  throughout  to  eliminate  everything  that,  by  reason  only  of 
the  variations  of  usage  on  the  two  sides  of  the  Channel,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  conditions  under  which  the  letters  were  origin- 
ally written,  on  the  other,  might  incline  the  English  reader  to 
avert  his  gaze,  and  miss  the  opportunity  of  enjoying  the  society 
of  one  of  the  best  and  noblest  men  of  the  nineteenth  century. 


The  House  at  Croisset. 


LIFE   AND   LETTERS  OF 
GUSTAVE   FLAUBERT 

CHAPTER  I 

CHILDHOOD SCHOOL  DAYS LETTERS  TO  ERKEST  CHEVALIER 

On  the  first  of  January  1831,  a  little  boy  living  at  Les 
Andelys,  some  twenty  miles  east  of  Rouen,  received  the 
following  letter  from  another  little  boy  : 

'  Dear  Friend, — You  are  right  in  saying  that  New  Year's 
day  is  a  stupid  thing.  My  friend  they  have  just  sent  the  grey- 
haired  La  Fayette  the  bravest  of  the  brave,  the  liberty  of  the 
two  worlds.  Friend,  I  will  send  you  some  of  my  political, 
constitutional  liberal  speeches,  you  are  right  to  say  you  will 
make  me  happy  by  coming  to  Rouen,  it  will  please  me  very 
much,  I  wish  you  a  happy  New  Year  for  1831.  Kiss  your 
good  family  for  me  with  all  your  heart. 

'  The  playmate  that  you  have  sent  me  has  the  air  of  being  a 
good  fellow,  although  I  have  only  seen  him  once. 

*  I  will  also  send  you  some  of  my  comedies.  If  you  wish  us 
to  join  writing,  I  will  write  comedy,  and  you  shall  write  your 
dreams,  and  as  there  is  a  lady  who  comes  to  our  house,  and 
who  always  talks  silly  things  to  us,  I  will  write  them.  I  am 
not  writing  well  because  I  have  a  box  from  Nogent  to  receive. 
Goodbye,  reply  to  me  as  soon  as  possible. 

'  Good  bye,  good  health,  your  friend  alway. 

Reply  to  me  as  soon  as  possible  I  pray.' 

Thus  with  the  hazardous  punctuation,  and  (in  the  original) 
with  the  doubtful  orthography  of  extreme  youth,  at  the  age 


2  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

of  nine  and  three  weeks,  Gustave  Flaubert  wrote  his  first 
letter  to  a  friend. 

Thirty-four  years  later  his  last  published  letter  to  the 
same  friend  has  the  following  passage  : — 

*  I  do  not  accept  your  affectionate  rebukes,  my  dear  Ernest, 
although  they  have  moved  me  to  the  bottom  of  my  soul.  It 
is  in  vain  that  we  see  one  another  only  at  distant  intervals  and 
for  a  short  time,  I  think  of  you  very  often,  be  sure  of  that,  and 
I  miss  you,  my  dear  old  man  !  As  we  grow  older,  as  the  home 
becomes  dispeopled,  we  are  carried  back  to  the  old  days,  to 
the  times  of  our  youth.  You  have  been  too  much  mixed  up 
with  mine,  you  have  for  a  long  time  played  too  large  a  part  in 
my  life  for  coldness  or  forgetfulness  ever  to  arise  on  my  side. 
I  never  go  to  my  brother's  house  at  Rouen  without  looking  at 
the  dwelling  of  old  Father  Mignot,  of  which  I  still  recollect 
the  whole  interior,  even  to  the  front  of  the  chimney  piece; 
Henry  iv.  with  the  fair  Gabrielle,  a  neighing  horse,  etc.  etc. 
When  Easter  comes  round,  I  think  of  my  visits  to  les  Andelys, 
when  we  used  to  smoke  pipe  after  pipe  in  the  ruins  of  Chateau- 
Gaillard,  and  your  poor  father  used  to  pour  us  out  wine  from 
Collioures,  and  carve  us  Amiens  pies,  laughing  all  the  while  so 
heartily  at  the  absurdities  I  used  to  say.  The  other  day  I 
went  to  the  College  to  see  a  small  boy  who  had  been  com- 
mended to  my  notice  by  friends  at  Paris;  the  whole  of  my 
school  life  came  back  to  my  memory.' 

By  the  time  that  this  letter  was  written,  the  friends  had 
wandered  far  apart ;  Ernest  Chevalier  had  followed  the 
ordmary  routine  of  a  capable  jurisconsult,  and  occupied  one 
legal  position  after  another  in  the  French  Magistracy ; 
Gustave  Flaubert  had  remained  faithful  to  his  first  love, 
continued  to  busy  himself  with  comedies  and  tragedies,  and 
to  record  the  absurdities  with  which  his  path  through  life 
was  beset. 

Ernest  Chevalier  was  a  successful  man ;  he  accomplished 
what  his  friends  expected  of  him  ;  he  rose  in  his  profession, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  3 

he  married,  he  was  successful ;  and  he  will  be  remembered 
because  of  the  little  boy  who  used  to  write  to  him  in  the 
holidays. 

Gustave  Flaubert  was  the  son  of  Achille  Cleophas 
Flaubert,  surgeon-in-chief  of  the  infirmary  at  Rouen,  a  man 
whose  comparatively  early  death  at  the  age  of  sixty-one  was 
regarded  as  a  public  calamity  in  the  town  in  which  he  had 
pursued  his  profession  with  the  single-hearted  devotion  of 
an  artist,  and  the  large-mindedness  of  a  man  of  genius. 
Though  he  was  never  permitted  to  accomplish  the  scientific 
task  which  he  had  proposed  to  himself,  and  to  give  the 
world  the  benefit  of  the  carefully  kept  notes  of  his  profes- 
sional career,  he  was  kno\vn  beyond  Rouen ;  and  his  son  was 
more  than  once  gratified  by  finding  that  his  own  name  was 
familiar  to  men  in  distant  places  through  the  reputation  of 
his  father.  '  Pere  Flaubert,"*  as  he  was  commonly  called  at 
Rouen,  was  the  son  of  a  veterinary  surgeon  at  Nogent-sur- 
Seine,  and  belonged  thus  to  the  province  of  Champagne, 
whose  inhabitants  are  credited  with  a  strain  of  chivalry  and 
impetuosity  foreign  to  the  more  cautious  and  cold  nature 
of  the  Normans  among  whom  he  spent  his  maturity,  and 
from  whom  he  chose  his  wife.  He  is  thus  described  by  his 
son  in  Madame  Bovary  : — 

'  Canivet  was  on  the  point  of  administering  theriacum,  when 
the  crack  of  a  whip  was  heard  in  the  distance ;  all  the  windows 
rattled,  and  a  postchaise  drawn  by  three  horses  at  full  gallop, 
splashed  up  to  the  ears,  turned  the  corner  of  the  mai'ket  in  one 
stride.     It  was  Doctor  Lariviere. 

'^The  apparition  of  a  god  would  not  have  caused  a  greater 
disturbance.  Bovary  raised  his  hands,  Canivet  stopped  short, 
and  Homais  pulled  off  his  cap  even  before  the  doctor 
entered. 

'  He  belonged  to  the  great  surgical  school,  which  sprang  from 
the  dissecting  table  of  Bichat,  to  that  now  lost  generation  of 


4  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

practical  philosophers,  who  cherishing  their  art  with  a  fanatical 
love,  practised  it  with  elevation  and  sagacity.  Every  one 
trembled  in  his  hospital  when  he  was  out  of  temper,  and  his 
students  respected  him  so  much,  that  they  struggled  to  imitate 
him  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  even  as  soon  as  they  were 
started  in  life ;  so  it  came  to  pass  that  in  all  the  towns  in  the 
neighbourhood  there  were  recognised  on  their  persons,  his  long 
merino  comforter,  and  his  full  black  coat,  whose  unbuttoned 
cuffs  to  some  degree  covered  his  muscular  hands:  very  beautiful 
hands,  that  never  wore  gloves,  as  if  to  be  more  ready  to  dash 
in  to  the  aid  of  suffering.  Contemptuous  of  decorations,  of 
honours,  of  Societies,  hospitable,  liberal,  paternal  to  the  poor, 
and  practising  virtue  without  believing  in  it,  he  would  almost 
have  passed  for  a  saint,  had  not  the  sharpness  of  his  wit  made 
him  terrible  as  a  fiend.  His  look,  more  cutting  than  his 
instruments,  went  straight  down  into  a  man's  soul,  and  through 
misstatements  and  modest  reservations  laid  every  lie  bare ; 
and  thus  he  moved  with  that  easy  majesty,  which  is  given  by 
the  consciousness  of  a  mighty  talent,  of  wealth,  and  of  forty 
years  of  an  industrious  and  irreproachable  existence. 

'  At  the  door  perceiving  the  cadaverous  countenance  of  Emma 
stretched  on  her  back,  her  mouth  open,  he  knitted  his  brows. 
Then  while  appearing  to  listen  to  Canivet,  he  passed  his  fore- 
finger under  his  nose  and  kept  repeating : — 

'  Good — good — 

'  But  he  made  a  slight  movement  with  his  shoulders.  Bovary 
noticed  it :  they  looked  at  one  another ;  and  this  man,  accus- 
tomed as  he  was  to  the  sight  of  sorrow,  could  not  hold  back  a 
tear,  which  fell  upon  his  shirt-frill.' 

In  this  masterly  fashion  does  the  son  draw  the  portrait  of 
the  father,  by  whom  he  himself  was  never  understood. 

On  the  mother*'s  side,  too,  Gustave  Flaubert  was  descended 
from  a  physician  ;  her  father  had  been  a  country  doctor, 
who  married  a  Mademoiselle  Cambremer,  to  the  great 
scandal  of  the  noble  families  of  Lower  Normandy  with  which 
she  was  related.  She  was  a  woman  to  whom  it  fell  to  bear 
something  more  than  the  ordinary  burden  of  sorrow,  and 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  5 

she  played  her  part  with  dignity  and  resignation.     She  was 
a  devoted  mother. 

The  Flaubert  family  consisted  of  the  father  and  mother, 
the  eldest  son,  Achille,  who  afterwards  succeeded  his  father 
in  the  Infirmary  at  Rouen,  Gustave,  nine  years  younger,  and 
a  daughter,  Caroline,  three  years  younger  still.  These  two 
last  children  were  distinguished  by  remarkable  personal 
beauty — a  royal  personage  once  stopped  to  notice  Gustave 
in  the  street — splendid  alike  in  colouring  and  form,  they 
unconsciously  attracted  the  homage  which  is  ever  rendered 
to  comeliness  of  person. 

Up  to  the  age  of  nine  Gustavus  had  not  learned  to  read ; 
while  his  sister  easily  acquired  the  art,  he  remained  confused 
and  stupefied  in  the  presence  of  the  mysterious  forms  of 
letters.  Meanwhile,  his  mind  was  not  inactive  :  on  the  one 
hand,  he  was  attended  by  a  veritable  jewel  of  a  nurse, 
descended  from  a  notable  family  of  postilions  located  in  a 
country  rich  in  folklore  and  semi-historical  traditions,  and 
who  had  supplemented  her  orally  acquired  knowledge  by  a 
somewhat  extensive  course  of  reading  during  a  tedious  and 
disabling  illness ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  opposite  the 
Infirmary,  lived  the  Pere  Mignot — a  mine  of  tales  of  all 
sorts,  and  who  was  ever  willing  to  spend  long  hours  reading 
Don  Quixote  to  the  handsome  dreamy  son  of  his  neighbour, 
the  loved,  the  respected,  the  dreaded  Pere  Flaubert. 

Thus  the  small  boy  early  acquired  the  habit  of  listening, 
and  of  listening  with  discrimination,  though  in  all  the 
practical  concerns  of  life  he  was  of  a  simplicity  almost 
incomprehensible.  The  same  child  who  could  perceive  the 
absurdities  of  the  conversation  of  his  father's  friends,  and 
propose  at  the  age  of  nine  to  turn  them  to  literary  uses,  was 
easily  taken  in  by  the  simplest  trick.  '  Go  and  see  if  I  am 
in  the  kitchen,"*  an  old  servant  would  say,  who  found  his 


1^ 


6  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

company  inconvenient ;  and  the  cliild  would  gravely  march 
to  the  kitchen  and  repeat,  to  the  mystification  of  the  cook, 
'  Peter  sent  me  to  see  if  he  is  here/ 

It  used  to  be,  and  still  is  to  some  extent,  the  custom  in 
France  to  send  the  sons  of  well-to-do  parents  to  boarding- 
schools,  which  are  often  situated  in  the  towns  in  which  the 
parents  reside.  On  Thursday  afternoons,  and  from  Saturday 
to  Monday  morning,  the  boys  returned  to  their  parents ; 
otherwise  they  lived  in  the  cloistered  seclusion  of  the  college, 
subject  to  a  discipline  inflexible  and  military  in  its  nature, 
performing  regular  exercise  at  regular  hours,  solemnly 
marching  from  class-room  to  class-room,  watched  both  during 
lessons  and  the  short  periods  of  recreation  by  an  inferior  class 
of  ushers,  who  had  nothing  to  do  with  teaching  beyond  main- 
taining order  during  the  lessons  of  the  professors.  This 
system,  by  rendering  morality  a  mere  question  of  discipline, 
enforced  by  a  despised,  and  not  unfrequently  contemptible 
spy,  almost  necessarily  alienated  the  sympathy  of  all  noble- 
minded  boys.  To  it  young  Gustave  was  submitted  a  little 
before  he  was  nine  years  old,  having  rapidly,  in  the  presence 
of  necessity,  surmounted  the  reading  difficulty,  and  for  nearly 
ten  years  he  remained  under  its,  to  him,  unbearably  irritating 
influence. 

During  this  time  Ernest  Chevalier  continued  to  be  his 
most  intimate  friend  ;  but  there  were  others  also  :  Alfred  le 
Poittevin,  whose  sister  was  afterwards  the  mother  of  Guy  de 
Maupassant ;  Louis  Bouilhet,  the  poet ;  Ernest  le  Marie,  and 
others,  were  members  with  Flaubert  of  a  small  circle  of 
romantic  youths,  who  mutually  excited  one  another  into  a 
condition  of  literary  exaltation  which,  in  one  or  two  cases, 
passed  beyond  the  limits  of  mere  romantic  imagining.  One 
of  them  hung  himself.  From  the  morbid  excesses  of  his 
companions  Flaubert  was  protected  by  the  healthy  home- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  7 

life  which  he  enjoyed  whenever  opportunity  offered.  His 
taste  for  literature  was  indirectly  encouraged  by  his  parents, 
who  allowed  the  children  and  their  friends  to  make  a  stage 
of  the  billiard  table,  and  declaim  tragedies  and  comedies 
from  that  elevation  to  an  audience  such  as  the  household 
could  supply,  with  the  addition  of  one  or  two  sympathetic 
friends.  Caroline  Flaubert  took  charge  of  the  dresses ;  the 
mother's  wardrobe  was  ransacked  for  cast-ofF  clothes  ;  and 
programmes  were  boldly  issued,  whose  comprehensiveness 
would  have  caused  the  company  of  the  Theatre  Fran(|^is 
some  misgiving. 

Ernest  Chevalier  received  the  following  letter  in  April 
1832,  the  writer  was  not  yet  eleven  years  old  : — 

'  Victory  Victory  Victory  Victory  Victory  you  will  come  one 
of  these  days  my  friend,  the  theatre,  the  bills,  everything  is 
ready.  When  you  come,  Amadeus,  Edmund,  Mme.  Chevalier, 
mother,  two  servants  and  perhaps  some  boys  will  come  to  see 
us  play,  we  shall  give  four  pieces,  which  you  do  not  know,  but 
you  will  soon  have  learned  them.  The  tickets  for  the  first, 
second  and  third  rows  are  ready,  there  will  be  stalls,  there  will 
also  be  drops,  scenery.  The  curtain  is  arranged,  perhaps  there 
will  be  ten  or  twelve  people.  Then  we  must  have  spirit  and 
not  be  afraid,  there  will  be  a  sentry  at  the  door,  who  will  be 
little  Lerond,  and  his  sister  will  be  a  ballet-dancer.  I  do  not 
know  if  you  have  seen  Parcognac  we  shall  play  it,  with  a 
piece  by  Berquin,  another  by  Scribe,  and  a  dramatised  proverb 
by  Marmontel,  it  is  useless  for  me  to  tell  you  their  titles,  you 
do  not  know  them  I  think,  if  you  knew  it,  when  I  was  told, 
that  you  were  not  coming  I  was  in  a  horrible  rage.  If  by 
chance  you  were  not  to  ct  me,  I  would  sooner  go  on  all  fours 
like  the  dogs  of  King  Louis  Philippe  (taken  from  the  Journal  of 
Caricatures,)  to  Andelys  to  look  for  you,  and  I  think  you  would 
do  as  much,  for  a  love,  so  to  say,  brotherly  unites  us.  Yes,  I 
who  have  sentiment  I  would  go  a  thousand  leagues,  if  it  were 
necessary,  to  meet  the  best  of  my  friends,  for  nothing  is  so  sweet 
as  friendship,  oh  sweet  friendship  !  how  much  has  been  seen  to 


8  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

be  done  by  this  sentiment!  without  that  tie  how  should  we 
live  ?  One  sees  this  sentiment  even  in  the  smallest  animals, 
without  friendship  how  would  the  feeble  live  ?  How  would 
women  and  children  find  subsistence  ?  Permit  me,  my  dear 
friend,  these  gentle  reflections,  but  I  swear  to  you  that  they 
are  not  made  up,  and  that  I  have  not  tried  to  make  rhetoric, 
but  I  speak  to  you  with  the  truth  of  a  true  friend.  The  cholera 
morbus  is  hardly  yet  at  the  Infirmary.  Your  father  is  going  on 
the  same.     Come  to  Rouen.     Farewell.' 

In  this  letter,  again,  in  spite  of  the  precocity  of  the 
thought,  there  are  fearful  struggles  with  the  spelling,  and 
the  writer  does  not  '  stand  upon  his  points."  The  imagina- 
tive faculty  was  far  in  advance  of  the  mechanical  powers  ; 
even  before  this,  when  the  small  boy  was  still  unable  to 
read,  he  would  improvise  scenes  and  dialogues,  in  which  he 
himself  took  all  the  parts,  after  sitting  dreaming  for  a  long 
time,  like  any  other  child,  with  his  thumb  in  his  mouth. 

Passionate  friendship  continued  to  be  a  ruling  sentiment 
with  Flaubert.  Old  friends  were  never  forgotten  ;  but  as  they 
fell  out  of  his  life,  others  stepped  into  the  vacant  place, 
without,  however,  disturbing  the  strength  of  the  old  attach- 
ment. In  his  boyhood  his  friends  were  generally  older  than 
himself :  Ernest  Chevalier  was  two  or  three  years  his  senior ; 
Alfred  le  Poittevin,  whom  he  adored,  and  whose  early  death 
he  never  ceased  to  speak  of  as  leaving  an  unfilled  void  in 
his  life,  was  six  years  older.  In  the  last  years,  when  all  had 
left  him,  he  found  in  the  affection  of  young  Guy  de  Mau- 
passant, something  of  the  same  happiness ;  two  months 
before  his  death,  he  wrote  : — 

'  My  young  man,  you  are  right  to  love  me,  for  your  old  fellow 
is  very  fond  of  you,  I  at  once  read  your  volume,  three 
parts  of  which,  for  that  matter,  I  already  knew.  We  will  go 
over  it  again  together.  .  .  .  Your  dedication  has  stirred  a 
world  of  reminiscences  in  me, — your  uncle  Alfred, — your  grand- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  9 

mother,  —  your   mother,  —  and    the   old    chap    had   for   some 
moments  a  swelling  heart  and  a  tear  in  his  eyelids.' 

From  the  beginning,  Flaubert's  friendships  were  founded 
on  literary  sympathy :  his  heart  was  always  open  to  a  man, 
or  woman,  who  would  talk  books  with  him.  Meanwhile, 
there  was  nothing  of  the  pale  student  about  him ;  in  body, 
as  well  as  in  intellect,  he  developed  harmoniously  as  well  as 
rapidly,  and  eventually  grew  to  be  looked  on  as  a  giant. 

During  his  boyhood  the  family  used  to  spend  the  summer 
holidays  at  Trouville,  then  a  small  fishing  village ;  and  here 
they  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  family  of  Admiral  Collier, 
whose  eldest  daughter,  afterwards  Mrs.  Tennant,  thus  writes 
of  him : — 

*  Gustave  Flaubert  was  then  like  a  young  Greek.  In  the 
flower  of  his  youth,  he  was  tall  and  slender,  supple  and  grace- 
ful as  an  athlete,  unconscious  of  the  gifts  which  he  possessed 
morally  and  physically,  caring  little  for  the  impression  that 
he  produced,  and  entirely  indifferent  to  accepted  forms. 
His  dress  consisted  of  a  red  flannel  shii-t,  rough  blue  cloth 
trousers,  a  scarf  of  the  same  colour  tightly  bound  around  his 
waist,  and  a  hat  placed  anyhow  on  his  head,  which  was  as  often 
as  not  bare.  When  I  used  to  speak  to  him  of  celebrity,  or 
influence  to  be  exercised,  as  things  desirable,  and  which  I 
should  value,  he  used  to  listen,  smile,  and  seem  superbly 
indifferent.  He  admired  what  was  beautiful  in  nature,  art  and 
literature,  and  would  live  for  that,  he  used  to  say,  without  any 
consideration  of  advantage.  He  never  gave  a  thought  to 
ambition  or  gain.  Was  it  not  sufi  cient  for  a  thing  to  be  true 
and  beautiful  ?  His  great  delight  was  to  find  something  that 
he  judged  worthy  of  admiration.  The  charm  of  his  society  was 
in  his  enthusiasm  for  all  that  was  noble,  and  the  charm  of  his 
mind  in  an  intense  individuality.  He  hated  all  hypocrisy. 
What  was  wanting  in  his  nature,  was  interest  in  external  things, 
in  useful  things.  If  some  one  happened  to  say,  that  religion, 
politics,  business,  had  as  great  an  interest  as  literature  and  art, 
he  opened  his  eyes  with  amazement  and  compassion.     To  be  a 


10  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

man  of  letters,  an  artist,  that  alone  made  it  worth  his  while  to 
live.' 

This  sentiment  had  already  been  strongly  expressed  in  a 
letter  written  in  his  thirteenth  year,  wherein  after  telling  his 
friend  that  he  was  occupied  in  writing  a  romance,  of  which 
Isabella  of  Bavaria  was  the  heroine,  he  said  : — 

'  You  think  that  I  feel  your  absence,  yes,  you  are  right,  and 
if  I  had  not  a  Queen  of  France  of  the  fifteenth  century  in  my 
head  and  at  the  end  of  my  pen,  I  should  be  completely  sick  of 
life,  and  long  ago  a  bullet  would  have  delivered  me  from  this 
comic  farce  that  is  called  life.' 

Strong  expressions  of  this  kind  need  not  be  taken  too 
seriously  on  the  lips  of  a  boy  of  thirteen ;  but  as  a  similar 
strain  continued  through  the  letters  written  in  the  next 
eight  years,  and  as  the  feeling  involved  was  not  peculiar  to 
Flaubert,  there  is  some  reason  for  inquiring  into  the  external 
conditions  which  produced  this  violence  of  sentiment  in  the 
boys  of  France  during  Flaubert's  youth. 

It  was  the  period  of  the  literary  revolution  ;  of  the  rise  of 
Romanticism.  In  Paris  at  this  time  a  school  broke  out  into 
open  mutiny  on  the  question  of  a  disrespectful  criticism  of 
Victor  Hugo  by  a  master.  This,  and  other  schoolboy 
excesses,  were  simply  the  natural  reaction  from  unwise 
repression. 

Of  all  people,  the  French  least  understand  liberty.  What- 
ever the  outward  form  of  government  in  France,  the  majority 
always  assumes  to  itself  to  prescribe  for  the  minority,  not 
only  what  it  shall  do,  but  what  it  shall  think,  and  pushes 
this  claim  to  its  extreme  logical  conclusion.  The  possible 
power  of  fiction  in  moulding  the  national  mind  to  acquies- 
cence in  a  particular  form  of  government,  and  especially  its 
influence  upon  the  young,  was  divined  by  the  statesmen  of 
Louis  XIV.,  whose  imitator,  Napoleon  i.,  also  wished  the  State 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  11 

to  control   what  the  young  should  read.      In  spite  of  the 
Revolution,  the  French  schools,  the  schools  in  which  the 
directing  classes  were  educated,  steadily  repressed  freedom  of 
thought,  and  inculcated  adherence  to  the  stately  forms  of 
the  classic  models.     The  Academy  flung  itself  on  its  knees 
before    Charles   x,,   and    petitioned   that   no    work   of   the 
Romantic  School  should  be  allowed  to  be  performed  on  the 
stage.     If  a  boy  was  discovered  to  be  reading  Victor  Hugo, 
the  horror  of  his  teachers — their  unaffected  horror — was  only 
to  be   compared   with   the   state   of  mind   of  an   English 
Evangelical    family,    whose    younger    members    might    be 
detected   poring   over   the   works    of  Miss   Braddon   on    a 
Sabbath  afternoon.       Church  and  State  were  alike  felt  to 
be  in  danger ;  at  the  same  time  there  was  a  genuine  artistic 
distaste  for  literature,  which  seemed  to  defy  all  preconceived 
standards,  and  to  combine  a  chaos  of  formlessness  with  an 
equally  chaotic  morality.      To    declaim  the  stately  Alex- 
andrines   of  Racine   and    Corneille,    imitate   the   honoured 
prose    of  Fenelon,    accept    Moliere    as    light    reading,    was 
allowed   to    the   French   youth ;    but  outside  the  circle  of 
accepted  authors,   of  the  word-mongers,  who  never  called 
anything  by  its  right  name,  and  saw  the  world  not  at  first 
hand,  but  in  a  kind  of  camera-obscura,  whose  images  were 
reflected  from  figures  no  longer  existent,  French  boys  were 
not  supposed  to  read  anything ;  and  one  of  the  most  hateful 
and  hated  duties  of  the  unfortunate  ushers  was  the  unre- 
mitting search  for  smuggled  volumes.     English  people  have 
not  been  exempt,  especially  in  certain  religious  connections, 
from   the   same  suspicion  of  literature.      Head-masters   of 
schools  controlled  by  the  Society  of  Friends  have  been  known 
to  warn  their  departing   pupils,  in  bidding  them  farewell, 
on  no  account  to  read  the  pernicious  works  of  one  William 
Shakespeare ;  but  in  England  there  has  never  prevailed  the 


12  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

same  universal  blockade  against  certain  schools  of  literature, 
that  was,  and  perhaps  still  is,  one  of  the  most  marked 
features  of  French  education.  To  the  majority  of  boys 
such  a  matter  is  of  small  importance  :  they  have  no  inclina- 
tion to  read,  and  feel  no  indignation  at  being  deprived  of 
the  privilege.  All  reading  is  lessons  with  them ;  and  as, 
from  their  point  of  view,  no  boy  in  his  senses  would  read  a 
book  for  himself,  it  would  make  little  difference  to  them 
whether  the  work  interdicted  were  Marmontel  or  Chateau- 
briand ;  Byron,  or  the  Rasselas  of  Dr.  Johnson.  On  the  boys 
gifted  with  the  literary  temperament,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
restrictions  produced  a  sense  of  grievance,  which  lasted  so 
long  as  life  lasted ;  it  seemed  to  them  that  all  authority  was 
banded  together  in  enmity  against  what  they  felt  to  be  the 
best  thing  in  life  ;  that  certain  books  alone  were  permitted ; 
inclined  them  to  believe  that  other  books  alone  Avere  worth 
reading ;  and  the  result  was,  that  they  not  only  rebelled 
openly  against,  or  despised  their  teachers,  but,  in  all  kinds  of 
clandestine  ways,  prematurely  studied  works  to  measure 
whose  true  value  and  true  meaning  they  had  not  had  the 
necessary  experience  of  life.  Before  he  was  seventeen, 
Flaubert  was  reading  Victor  Hugo,  Byron,  Shakespeare, 
Rabelais,  Montaigne,  and  early  acquired  the  conviction  that 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  indecency  in  true  literature.  For 
a  while,  the  literature  of  the  schoolmasters  seemed  to  him  not 
to  be  literature  at  all.  English  schools  of  the  same  period 
do  not  seem  to  have  bothered  themselves  with  English 
literature  in  any  form.  We  see  in  Thackeray  traces  of  a 
revolt  against  literary  despotism,  but  it  is  against  the 
despotism  of  Latin  and  Greek ;  he  had  no  need  to  be 
indignant  that  G.  P.  R.  James  and  Walter  Scott  were  with- 
held from  him,  and  that  Addison's  Cato  was  forced  upon 
him.     There  are  some  advantages  in  belonging  to  a  nation 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  13 

which  only  intermittently  takes  literature  seriously.  Flaubert 
and  his  schoolfellows  were  cut  off  from  the  advantage  of 
discussing,  with  men  of  mature  experience,  the  questions 
which  most  interested  them,  the  authors  they  liked  best ; 
consequently  they  were  unable  to  analyse  and  estimate  mere 
rhetoric,  the  cynicism  of  disappointment ;  they  did  not 
know  that  the  poet  sings,  like  the  linnet,  '  because  he  must ' ; 
that  the  mood  which  produces  Lara,  is  compatible  with  a 
great  deal  of  dining  out ;  and  that  that  despairing  poetess, 
Miss  Bunion,  '  ate  a  mutton  chop  for  breakfast  every  morning 
of  her  blighted  existence/ 

On  August  the  fourteenth  1835,  Flaubert  being  now 
thirteen  years  and  seven  months  old,  wrote  to  Ernest 
Chevalier : — 

'  I  see  with  indignation  that  the  censorship  of  the  stage  is  to 
be  established  again,  and  the  liberty  of  the  Press  abolished. 
Yes, — this  law  will  pass,  for  the  representatives  of  the  people 
are  nothing  but  a  foul  heap  of  mercenai'ies.  Their  aim  is  self- 
interest,  turpitude  is  their  hobby,  a  brute  pride  their  honour, 
their  soul  a  mud  heap ;  but  one  day,  a  day  that  will  soon  come, 
the  people  will  begin  the  third  revolution ;  then  take  care  of 
your  head,  look  out  for  rivers  of  blood.  It  is  of  his  conscience 
that  the  man  of  letters  is  now  being  robbed,  of  his  artist's 
conscience.  Yes, — our  age  is  fertile  in  sudden  and  bloody 
changes.  Fare  thee  well, — and  as  for  us,  let  us  concern 
ourselves  always  with  art,  with  art,  that  is  greater  than  peoples, 
than  crowns  and  kings,  always  there,  floating  on  Enthusiasm 
with  her  heavenly  diadem.' 

Strip  this  letter  of  its  boyish  rhetoric  and  you  have 
Flaubert's  life;  from  the  determination  here  expressed  he 
never  deviated. 

In  a  letter  written  two  years  afterwards,  a  passage  occurs 
in  a  different  vein,  very  characteristic  of  his  later  life : — 

'Old  Langlois  and  Orlowski  dined  at  our  house  yesterday, 
and  they  made  a  pretty  good  thing  of  it,  drinking,  stuffing. 


14  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ranting.  Achille,  myself  and  Bizet  are  invited  for  Sunday  to  go 
and  fuddle  oui'selves,  smoke  and  listen  to  music  at  Orlowskis'. 
All  the  Polish  refugees  will  be  there.  There  are  thirty  of 
them.  It  is  a  national  festival ;  every  Easter  Sunday  they 
have  a  similar  feast  in  the  house  of  one  of  them.  They  eat 
sausages,  black  puddings,  hard  boiled  eggs,  pig's  flesh,  and  no 
one  is  permitted  to  go  out  till  he  has  been  drunk  and  has 
spewed,  five  or  six  times.' 

The  same  letter  concludes  with  violent  jubilation  over  the 
detection  of  one  of  the  hated  ushers  in  compromising  circum- 
stances, whom  he  credits  with  having  'a  dirty  shirt,  dirty 
stockings,  and  a  dirty  soul.' 

In  April  1874,  Flaubert  published  a  volume  called  The 
Temptation  of  St.  Antliony — a  sort  of  prose  poem,  in 
which  humanity,  represented  by  the  saint,  is  assailed  by  all 
the  forms  of  religion  and  erratic  imaginations  possible  to 
mankind  in  the  fourth  century  a.d.  The  book  had  been 
\vi-itten  three  times  ;  the  first  manuscript  was  destroyed,  under 
circumstances  hereafter  to  be  described,  in  1849;  the  second 
at  the  time  when  Flaubert  abandoned  his  house  to  the 
Prussians  billeted  upon  him  in  1870.  In  1839  we  find  the 
germ  of  this  book,  to  which  he  has  already  alluded  in 
December  1838  :— 

'  I  am  hardly  reading  at  all  now,  I  have  again  taken  up  a 
piece  of  work  long  laid  aside,  a  mystery,  a  hash,  of  which,  I 
think,  I  have  already  spoken  to  you.  Here  it  is  in  two  words. 
Satan  leads  a  man,  (Smar,)  into  infinite  space,  they  both  rise  in 
the  air  to  an  immeasurable  distance.  Then  Smar,  to  whom  so 
much  is  disclosed,  is  filled  with  pride.  He  believes  that  all 
the  mysteries  of  creation  and  infinity  are  revealed  to  him; 
but  Satan  leads  him  still  higher.  Then  he  is  frightened, 
he  trembles,  this  vast  abyss  seems  to  devour  him,  in  the  void 
he  is  feeble.  They  descend  again  to  earth.  There  is  his  own 
soil,  he  says,  that  it  is  to  live  there  that  he  was  created,  and 
everything  in  nature  is  subjected  to  him.     Then  a  storm  rises ; 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  15 

the  sea  threatens  to  swallow  him  up.  He  again  admits  his 
weakness^  his  nothingness.  Satan  proceeds  to  take  him 
amongst  mankind.  First  the  savage  sings  of  his  happiness, 
his  wandering  life,  but  all  of  a  sudden,  a  desire  to  depart  to 
the  city  seizes  him,  he  cannot  resist  it,  he  goes.  There  you 
have  the  barbarous  races,  who  become  civilised.  Secondly 
they  come  to  the  town,  to  the  king  racked  with  pain,  a  prey 
to  the  seven  deadly  sins,  to  the  poor,  to  the  married,  into  the 
church,  which  is  deserted.  All  parts  of  the  building  take  up 
their  voice  to  bewail  this,  from  the  vault  of  the  nave  to  the 
flag-stones,  all  speak  and  curse  God.  Then  the  church  having 
become  blasphemous,  falls.  In  all  this  there  is  a  personage, 
who  takes  part  in  all  the  events,  and  turns  them  to  farce.  He 
is  Yuk  the  god  of  the  grotesque.  Thus  in  the  first  scene, 
while  Satan  was  corrupting  Smar  through  his  pride,  Yuk  was 
pledging  a  married  woman  to  surrender  herself  to  the  first- 
comer,  without  distinction.  It  is  laughter  beside  tears  and 
agonies ;  filth  beside  blood.  At  last,  Smar  is  disgusted  with 
the  world,  he  would  like  the  whole  thing  done  with ;  but 
Satan  on  the  conti-ary,  goes  on  to  make  him  experience  all  the 
passions,  and  all  the  wretchedness  that  he  has  seen.  He  bears 
him  on  winged  horses  to  the  banks  of  the  Ganges.  There, 
monstrous  and  fantastic  orgies,  debauchery  such  as  I  can 
imagine  it,  but  debaucheiy  wearies  him.  Again  after  this 
he  experiences  ambition.  He  becomes  poet ;  after  his  vanished 
illusions  his  despair  becomes  immense ;  the  cause  of  heaven  is 
like  to  be  lost.  Smar  has  not  yet  experienced  love.  Then  a 
woman  appears  ...  a  woman  ...  he  loves  her,  he  has  become 
beautiful  again,  but  Satan  falls  in  love  with  her  also.  They 
each  try  to  seduce  her  for  themselves.  Who  will  have  the 
victory  ?  Satan  you  think  ?  No  !  Yuk  the  grotesque.  This 
woman  is  Truth,  and  the  whole  thing  ends  in  a  monstrous 
union.' 

Reminiscences  oi  Faust  are  obvious  enough  in  this  strange 
rigmarole,  written  by  a  boy  of  eighteen,  but  the  position 
of  the  god  of  the  grotesque  is  individual,  and  Flauberfs 
own.  Under  another  form  Yuk  appears  in  the  published 
St.  Anthony;  he  attends  on  the  debaucheries  and  death-bed  of 


16  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Madame  Bovary ;  he  waits  on  the  footsteps  of  all  the 
characters  in  the  Sentimental  Education ;  we  catch  glimpses 
of  him  in  Salammho.  He  is  in  the  last  line  of  the  Herodias ; 
in  more  than  one  passage  of  the  St.  Julian  ;  slightly  shocks 
us  in  the  Story  of  a  Simple  Soid ;  and  is  the  moving  spirit, 
the  life  and  breath,  of  Bouva?'d  and  Ptcuchef. 

About  this  period,  Ernest  Chevalier  had  left  school  and 
gone  to  Paris  to  read  law,  where  he  was  not  particularly 
happy.  Flaubert,  in  reply  to  some  of  his  wailings,  wrote 
the  following  edifying  letter  under  the  nose  of  the  'Sieur 
Amyot,"*  who  was  lecturing  on  the  theory  of  eclipses,  to  an 
apparently  unsympathetic  audience  : — 

'  And  you  too  !  Why  !  I  credited  you  with  more  common 
sense  than  myself,  dear  friend,  do  you  too  squall  and  sob  ? 
What  ?  Good  heavens  !  what  is  the  matter,  pray,  with  you  ? 
Know  you  that  the  young  generation  of  students  is  superbly 
stupid  ;  formerly  it  had  more  go  ;  it  amused  itself  with  women, 
sword  thrusts,  orgies  ;  now  it  drapes  itself  after  Byron,  dreams 
of  despair,  and  padlocks  its  heart  to  its  own  content.  It  is, 
who  shall  look  the  palest,  and  say  the  loudest,  "  I  am  surfeited, 
palled  ! "  How  sad  !  surfeited  at  eighteen  !  Is  there  no  more 
love,  no  more  glory,  no  more  work  !  Is  that  all  burned  out } 
No  more  nature  ?  No  more  flowers  for  the  young  man  ?  No, 
— let  us  leave  all  that !  Let  us  do  our  sadness  in  art,  since 
we  feel  the  more  strongly  in  that  direction,  but  in  life  let  us 
do  our  merriment,  let  the  cork  fly,  let  the  pipe  be  filled,  let 
the  wench  disrobe !  damn  it  all  !  and  if  one  evening  in  the 
twilight  during  an  hour  of  fog  and  snow,  we  have  the  spleen, 
let  it  come,  but  not  often ;  one  must  scrape  one's  heart  from 
time  to  time  with  a  bit  of  suffering  to  get  the  whole  scab  off"  it. 
There  !  That  is  what  I  advise  you  to  do,  and  what  I  myself 
struggle  to  put  in  practice.' 

So  much  for  Sieur  Amyot  and  his  theory  of  eclipses. 
Among  the  absurdities  collected  by  Flaubert  for  the  second, 
never  finished,  part  of  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,  is  the  following 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  17 

statement  of  Monseigneur  Dupanloup  occurring  in  a  treatise 
on  education  :  '  The  study  of  Mathematics  by  repressing 
sentiment  and  imagination,  sometimes  renders  the  explosion 
of  the  passions  terrible.'  Most  of  Flaubert's  letters  at  this 
period  were  written  during  mathematical  lessons,  and  tend 
to  confirm  the  dictum  of  the  Archbishop  ;  these  studies 
certainly  convinced  him  temporarily  of  the  futility  of  his 
existence  : — 

'  O  what  a  lot  of  money  I  would  give  to  be  either  more 
stupid  or  less  intellectual  !  Atheist  or  mystic  !  but  at  any 
rate  something  complete  and  whole,  an  identity,  in  a  word 
something.' 

These  words  seem  to  have  been  suggested  by  a  disquisi- 
tion on  square  roots. 

At  Easter  1840  he  spent  the  usual  holiday  at  Les  Andelys, 
and  on  his  return  wrote  as  follows  : — 

'  It  is  thus  that  I  am  made,  happy  days  always  give  me  a 
thousand  sad  ones,  joy  that  is  passed  depresses  me ;  holiday 
days  for  me  have  always  dismal  morrows. 

'  I  really  felt  while  returning  to  Rouen  that  something  of  my 
happiness  was  departing ;  the  sum  of  felicity  apportioned  to  each 
of  us  is  small,  and  when  we  have  spent  a  little  bit  of  it,  we  are 
altogether  gloomy.  I  was  sitting  on  the  outside  of  the  coach 
in  silence,  my  face  to  the  wind,  rocked  by  the  swing  of  the 
gallop.  I  felt  the  road  fly  under  me,  and  with  it  all  the  years 
of  my  youth,  I  thought  of  all  my  other  expeditions  to  les 
Andelys,  I  plunged  myself  up  to  the  neck  in  all  these 
memories,  I  compared  them  vaguely  to  the  smoke  of  my  pipe 
which  was  flying  away,  leaving  the  air  all  perfumed  behind  it. 
As  I  approached  Rouen,  I  began  to  feel  the  life  of  fact,  the 
present ;  they  began  to  take  hold  of  me,  and  with  them  the 
work  of  every  day,  the  life  of  detail,  the  working  table,  the 
accursed  hours,  the  cavern  in  which  my  thought  struggles  and 
fights  to  death.  Yes, — there  are  days,  like  yesterday,  for 
instance,  when  one  is  sad,  when  one's  heart  is  big  with  tears, 
when  one  loathes  oneself,  and  could  devour  one's  own  heart  for 


18  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

rage.  What  one  should  do,  is,  not  think  of  the  past^  not  say 
td  one's  self:  "there  must  still  be  sunshine  there,  it  is  seventy 
two  hours  since  I  was  in  such  a  place,  I  still  see  the  shadow  of 
my  head  on  the  highroad,  flying  after  the  horses,  and  a  thousand 
other  follies " ;  one  must  look  at  the  future,  stretch  out  one's 
neck  to  see  the  horizon,  fling  one's  self  forward,  put  down 
one's  head,  and  on  quickly,  without  listening  to  the  wailing 
voice  of  tender  memories,  which  would  fain  call  one  back 
to  the  valley  of  everlasting  sorrow.  One  must  not  look  into 
the  abyss,  for  in  its  depths  there  is  an  inexpressible  charm  that 
draws  us  down.' 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  LAW  STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE  WITH  HIS  SISTER 

In  the  summer  of  1839  Flaubert  finally  left  school,  and, 
after  a  short  journey  in  the  South  of  France  and  Corsica 
with  Dr.  Jules  Cloquet,  a  friend  of  his  father''s,  went  to 
Paris,  like  his  friend  Chevalier,  to  study  law.  From  this 
time,  till  his  return  home  four  years  later,  his  chief  corres- 
pondent was  his  sister ;  and  in  these  letters  we  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  home  life,  and  of  the  vigorous,  active,  outward  person- 
ality of  the  lad  whose  thoughts  were  often  so  sombre.  The 
Flaubert  family  continued  their  love  of  acting  long  after 
their  childhood,  and  though  they  do  not  seem  to  have  con- 
tinued performances  on  the  stage,  they  were  in  the  habit  of 
assuming  the  parts  of  sundry  fictitious  characters  for  one 
another''s  amusement ;  one  of  Gustave''s  chief  roles  was  that 
of  the  'gar^on,"*  a  personage  whose  characteristics  are  not 
otherwise  indicated.  We  know  of  him  that  he  had  a  marked 
laugh,  which  we  may  assume  to  have  been  inane,  loud  and 
fatuous,  and  that  Gustave  once  discovered  an  epitaph  for 
him  :  *  Here  lies  one  given  to  all  the  vices."*  On  the  whole, 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  an  estimable  character,  and 
perhaps  the  less  we  know  of  him  the  better.  This  vein  of 
buffoonery  remained  with  Flaubert  all  his  life  ;  he  would  do 
anything  to  amuse  his  friends  ;  anything  to  make  the  people 
that  he  liked  laugh  heartily.     Even  in  his  correspondence  he 

19 


20  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

occasionally  poses  in  a  character  not  his  own  ;  and  late  in 
life  wrote  a  sham  autobiography,  for  George  Sand,  of  the 
Rev.  Father  Cruchard,  whose  character,  he  professed,  was 
his  own. 

The  study  of  law  was  not  congenial  to  Flaubert ;  he  took 
it  up  in  obedience  to  the  wishes  of  his  father,  a  practical 
man,  who  saw  no  future  in  literature,  and  seems  to  have 
classed  literary  men  with  the  sword-thrusters  and  ballet- 
dancers,  whom  Moliere''s  teacher  of  philosophy  so  profoundly 
despised. 

Maxime  Ducamp  thus  describes  the  first  apparition  of 
Flaubert  upon  him  during  these  days  of  reading  law  ;  he 
was  living  in  rooms  with  Ernest  le  Marie,  a  former  college 
friend  of  Flauberfs  at  Rouen  : — 

'One  day  in  March,  1843,  while  le  Marie  was  hammering 
out  Beethoven's  funeral  march  on  the  piano,  and  I  was  slinging 
rhymes,  we  heard  a  peal  of  the  bell,  violent,  imperious,  the 
ring  of  a  master.  I  saw  a  tall  fellow  come  in,  with  a  long  fair 
beard,  and  his  hat  over  his  ear.  Gustave  Flaubert  was  then 
twenty-one  years  old.  He  was  of  heroic  beauty.  With  his 
white  skin  slightly  flushed  upon  the  cheeks,  his  long  fine 
floating  hair,  his  tall  broad-shouldered  figure,  his  abundant 
golden  beard,  his  enormous  eyes — the  colour  of  the  green  of 
the  sea — veiled  under  black  eyelashes,  with  his  voice  as 
sonorous  as  the  blast  of  a  trumpet,  his  exaggerated  gestures, 
and  resounding  laugh ;  he  was  like  those  young  Gallic  chiefs 
who  fought  against  the  Roman  armies.' 

Meanwhile  this  overpowering  giant  was   writing  to   the 

little  sister  at  home. 

'May  16,  1841. 

'Thank  you  heartily,  good  mouse,  for  the  letter  that  you 
sent  me  yesterday  ;  it  was  dainty  and  clever,  like  yourself,  full 
of  flashes  of  wit,  which  I  have  learned  by  heart,  and  which  I 
mean  to  pass  on  as  my  own  on  the  first  opportunity.   .  .   . 

'  Keep  a  brave  heart,  dear  old  mouse,  for  next  Saturday  ! 
Come  up  now  !     Assurance  !     Thunder  and  lightning !     There 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  21 

we  are — one  two — one  two — not  too  quick — close  the  shakes, 
brrr the  Httle  runs,  don't  let  us  lose  our  head  ! 

'  Since  you  are  doing  geometry  and  trigonometry,  I  will  give 
you  a  problem  :  A  ship  is  on  the  sea,  it  left  Boston  laden  with 
cotton,  it  is  of  200  tons  burden,  it  sails  towards  Havre,  the 
mainmast  is  broken,  there  is  a  cabin  boy  on  the  fore-peak,  the 
passengers  are  twelve  in  number,  the  wind  blows  N.E.E.,  the 
chronometer  reads  a  quarter  past  three  in  the  afternoon,  the 
month  is  May.     Required — the  Captain's  age.' 

'July,  1841. 

'The  holidays  are  approaching.  I  warn  you  both,  however, 
of  one  thing,  you  and  mamma ;  during  the  stay  that  I  am 
going  to  make  at  Rouen,  you  must  be  agreeable,  you  must  have 
pleasant  faces ;  the  same  remark  may  be  addressed  to  Mistress 
Fargues.  Suffer  as  much  as  you  like,  in  the  back,  in  the  head ; 
have  chilblains,  rashes,  what  not !  but  act  so  as  to  make  the 
house  comfortable  to  me.  However  you  behave,  I  shall  always 
be  happier  there  than  here. 

'  I  breathe  a  little  more  now,  and  consider  my  job  nearly 
done.  I  am  merry,  jocose,  I  burn  to  climb  on  to  the  coach,  I 
see  myself  arriving  at  Rouen  on  Tuesday  morning,  ascending 
the  stairs  at  a  run,  bawling,  and  kissing  you. 

'  From  time  to  time  I  give  vent  to  peals  of  laughter  in  the 
style  of  the  "  gar9on "  to  amuse  myself,  and  I  do  Father 
Couillere  as  I  look  at  myself  in  the  glass.' 

'March  1842. 
'  Dialogue  which  took  place  an  hour  ago. 
'  Personages  :  Myself. — My  Bedmaker. 

'  (I   hear  a  noise). 

'  Bedmaker  (Jrom  the  hmding). — It  is  me,  sir ;  don't  disturb 
yourself.  (Enter  Bedmaker.)  I  am  bringing  you  some  matches, 
sir,  for  you  want  them. 

'  Myself. — Yes. 

'  Bedmaker. — The  gentleman  burns  a  good  many  of  them. 
He  works  so  much.  Ah,  how  he  works  !  I  could  not  do  as 
much,  I  who  speak  to  you. 

'  Myself. — Yes. 

'  Bedmaker. — The  gentleman  is  soon  a-going  !    You  are  right. 

'  Myself. — Yes. 


22  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Bedmaker. — That  will  do  you  a  world  of  good  just  to  take 
the  air  a  little ;  for  since  you  have  been  here^  I  am  sure,  I  am 
sure  .  .  . 

'  Myself  {pointedly). — Yes. 

'  Bedmaker  (raising  her  voice). — Your  parents  ought  to  be 
pleased  to  have  a  son  like  you.  (This  is  her  fixed  idea,  she  has 
already  told  Hamard  so.) 

'  Myself. — Yes. 

'Bedmaker. — The  fact  is,  you  see,  nothing  pleases  parents 
more  than  to  see  their  children  work  well.  Ah  well !  When 
I  see  Alphonsine  at  work,  there  's  nothing  pleases  me  so  much 
as  that.  Just  you  work  well,  you  work  well,  that  is  what  I  say 
to  her  every  day,  naughty  idle  girl !  You  like  to  stay  like  that 
doing  nothing !  But  I  must  be  telling  you,  she  is  a  little 
delicate,  my  poor  Alphonsine.  Yes,  she  has  a  little  gathering 
just  now,  that  keeps  her  from  sewing.  She  is  not  so  bad  as  I 
am — no — no.  Ah  yes,  when  I  was  young,  I  had  finer  features 
than  she  has;  ah  yes,  see  you,  she  has  not  as  fine  features 
as  I  have  ;  that  is  what  I  say  to  her  every  day :  Alphonsine, 
you  have  not  as  fine  features  as  I  have.  But  you,  sir,  it  is  not 
that  way  with  you,  it  is  the  head  that  works,  it  is  memory  that 
you  want.     Yes,  certainly,  yes,  you  will  need  to  take  the  air." 

'  She  was  still  speaking,  long  after  1  had  ceased  to  listen. 

*  Ah  mouse,  good  mouse,  dear  old  mouse  !  take  care  to  have 
good  strong  cheeks  for  next  week,  for  I  simply  long  to  kiss 
them  for  you.  I  will  give  myself  a  regular  bout.  Yes,  when 
1  think  of  it,  I  shall  certainly  not  be  able  to  keep  from  hurting 
you.' 

While  enjoying  the  holiday  looked  forward  to  in  the  last 
letter,  Flaubert  again  replied  to  a  jeremiad  from  Ernest 
Chevalier,  who  had  remained  in  Paris  : — 

'  What !  old  scamp  !  to  what  a  condition  "  a  man  like  you  "  is 
reduced !  Take  it  easy,  my  fine  fellow,  take  it  easy  !  Instead 
of  reading  so  much  law  do  a  little  philosophy,  read  Rabelais, 
Montaigne,  Horace,  or  some  other  old  chap,  who  has  seen 
life  under  a  less  stormy  sky,  and  learn  once  for  all,  that  you 
must  not  ask  apple-trees  for  oranges,  France  for  sunshine, 
women  for  love,  life   for  happiness.      Up  with   you  !    think   of 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  23 

soup,  of  meat,  of  pdies  de  foie  gras,  of  Chambertin.  How  can 
you  complain  of  life,  when  there  are  still  beds  wherein  a  man 
may  console  himself  with  love,  and  a  bottle  of  wine  to  lose  his 
senses  withal !  Pluck  up  your  courage,  confound  it !  take  to  a 
severe  course  of  life,  play  larks  at  night,  break  the  gas  lamps, 
have  rows  with  cabmen,  smoke  like  a  chimney,  go  to  cafes, 
bolt  without  paying,  smash  in  hats,  belch  in  peoples'  faces, 
disperse  your  melancholy,  and  thank  Providence.  For  the 
century  in  which  you  were  born  is  a  happy  century,  railways 
furrow  the  fields,  there  are  bituminous  clouds,  and  rains  of 
coal,  asphalt-paths,  and  wooden  pavements,  penitentiaries  for 
young  felons,  and  savings' -banks  for  thrifty  domestics  who  go 
there  incontinent  to  deposit,  what  they  have  stolen  from  their 
masters.  M.  Hebert  is  public  prosecutor,  and  bishops  issue 
pastorals,  whores  go  to  mass,  kept  women  talk  at  least  of 
morals,  and  the  government  defends  religion;  the  unfortunate 
Theophile  Gautier  is  accused  of  immorality  by  M.  Faure,  authors 
are  put  in  prison,  and  pamphleteers  are  paid.  But  the  funniest 
thing  of  all  is  the  Executive  protecting  sound  morals  and  repel- 
ling outrages  upon  orthodox  views.  Human  justice  is  indeed 
to  me  the  most  farcical  thing  in  the  world ;  one  man  judging 
another  is  a  sight,  which  would  make  me  die  of  laughing,  if  it 
did  not  stir  my  compassion,  and  if  I  were  not  at  present  being 
compelled  to  study  the  string  of  absurdities,  in  virtue  of  which 
he  is  a  judge.  I  can  see  nothing  more  stupid  than  jurispru- 
dence, if  it  is  not  the  study  of  jurisprudence  ;  I  work  at  it  with 
profound  disgust,  and  that  deprives  me  of  all  heart,  and  spirit 
for  any  thing  else.  I  am  even  beginning  to  get  a  little 
anxious  about  ray  examination,  but  only  a  little,  and  I  won't 
disturb  my  spleen  any  the  more  for  that.  Here  is  the  summer 
coming  back,  that  is  all  that  I  want,  may  the  Seine  be  warm 
for  me  to  bathe  in  !  the  scent  of  the  flowers  be  good !  the 
shadows  of  the  trees  deep  ! 

'  Do  you  know  the  epitaph  of  Henri  Heine  ?  Here  it  is  :  "  He 
loved  the  roses  of  Brenta."  That  might  well  be  mine.  The 
"  gar9on's  epitaph " :  "  Here  lies  a  man  abandoned  to  all  the 
vices." 

'  Often  I  shrug  my  shoulders  with  pity,  when  I  think  of  all 
the  trouble  that  we  give  ourselves,  all  the  anxiety  which  gnaws 


24  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

us,  to  be  successful,  to  get  ourselves  a  fortune  and  a  name ; 
how  empty  all  that  is  !  how  pitiful !  To  wear  a  black  coat 
from  morning  to  evening,  to  have  boots,  braces,  gloves,  books, 
opinions,  push  one's  self,  get  one's  self  pushed,  introduce  one's 
self,  do  one's  bow,  and  go  one's  way  !     O  Lord  ! 

'  Where  is  my  Fontarabian  shore,  where  the  sand  is  golden, 
the  sea  blue,  the  houses  black,  birds  sing  among  the  ruins  ? 
Again  there  are  known  to  me  paths  in  the  snow,  the  air  is 
keen,  the  wind  wails  in  the  hollows  of  the  mountains.  There 
the  solitary  shepherd  whistles  his  wandering  dogs,  there  he 
expands  his  bare  chest  and  breathes  at  his  ease,  and  the  air  is 
balmy  with  the  perfume  of  larch. 

'  Who  will  give  me  back  the  Mediterranean  breezes,  for  on 
those  shores  the  heart  expands,  the  myrtles  shed  their  scent, 
there  is  a  murmuring  of  waves.  Hurrah  for  sun,  orange  trees, 
palms,  lotus,  boats  with  streamers,  cool  pavilions  paved  with 
marble,  where  the  wainscots  breathe  of  love.  Oh — if  I  had  a 
tent  made  of  reeds  and  bamboo  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges, 
how  would  I  listen  all  night  to  the  ripple  of  the  current  in  the 
rushes,  to  cooing  birds  perched  on  bright-stemmed  trees  ! 

'  But,  damn  it  all !  I  say.  Shall  I  ever  walk  with  my  own 
feet  in  the  sands  of  Syria?  Where  the  red  horizon  dazzles, 
where  the  earth  rises  in  burning  spirals,  and  eagles  poise  in 
the  fiery  sky  ?  Shall  I  never  see  the  cities  of  the  embalmed 
dead,  where  hyenas  bark  kennelled  under  the  mummies  of 
kings  at  the  time  when  the  evening  comes,  and  the  hour,  when 
camels  crouch  by  the  wells.  In  those  countries  the  stars  are 
four  times  as  big  as  ours,  the  sunshine  scorches,  women  writhe 
and  spring  under  kisses  and  embraces,  they  wear  bracelets  and 
rings  of  gold  on  their  feet  and  hands,  and  robes  of  fine  gauze. 

'  Only  sometimes,  when  the  sun  is  setting,  I  imagine  that  I 
am  arriving  all  of  a  sudden  at  Ai-les,  twilight  illumines  the 
amphitheatre,  and  gilds  the  marble  tombs  of  the  Elis-campi  ; 
and  I  begin  my  journey  again,  I  go  further,  still  further,  like  a 
leaf  borne  on  the  wind. 

'  A  reminiscence  is  a  fine  thing,  it  almost  amounts  to  a 
regretted  longing.* 

Among  the  many  strange  contrasts  in  Flaubert's  character, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  25 

his  intimate  friends  noted  the  voluptuousness  of  his  imagina- 
tion and  the  purity  of  his  hfe. 

The  noisy  rioting  of  the  student,  which  he  describes  in 
this  letter,  and  humorously  recommends  to  Ernest  Chevalier, 
bored  him  infinitely.  His  pleasures  were  entirely  literary. 
Endless  discussions  as  to  the  merits  of  poets  and  playwriters, 
arguments  on  every  possible  subject,  from  the  nature  of  the 
soul  and  immortality  to  the  merits  of  a  music-hall  song, 
were  the  chief  occupation  of  the  small  knot  of  students 
with  whom  he  associated.  He  visited  a  few  houses,  especi- 
ally the  studio  of  Pradier,  the  sculptor,  which  was  a  kind  of 
Bohemian  literary  club,  and  spent  many  of  his  afternoons 
reading  to  the  daughters  of  Admiral  Collier,  whose  family 
were  then  living  in  Paris, 

Meanwhile,  he  continued  to  be  horribly  bored  by  the 
lectures  on  law. 

'  If  you  think  from  reading  my  letters^  that  I  am  not 
miserable,  my  poor  mouse,  you  are  as  far  out  of  it  as  you  can 
be.  ...  If  you  had  an  idea  of  the  hfe  that  I  lead,  you  would 
imagine  it  without  difficulty.  Montaigne,  my  old  Montaigne, 
said:  "We  must  embeast  ourselves  to  be  wise."  I  am  always 
so  emheasted,  that  it  may  pass  for  wisdom,  and  even  for  virtue. 
Sometimes  I  long  to  go  at  my  table  with  my  fists,  and  make 
everything  fly  to  smithereens,  then,  when  the  fit  is  over,  I 
perceive  by  my  clock,  that  I  have  lost  half-an-hour  in  lamenta- 
tions, and  I  set  myself  to  blacken  paper,  and  turn  over  pages 
with  more  speed  than  ever.' 

Maxime  Ducamp  confirms  this  description  of  his  methods 
of  work  where  law  was  the  subject. 

'  How  often  have  I  seen  him  push  away  his  Code  Civile 
and  say  :  "  I  don't  understand  a  word  of  it,  it  \s  raving- 
nonsense.''"'  He  then  betook  himself  to  the  commentaries, 
and  found  that  they  were  raving  nonsense  too."' 

'  His  method  of  working  was  hardly  practical ;  under  the 


26  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

pretence  of  taking  notes,  he  copied  the  books  upon  the 
subjects  that  he  had  to  study ;  now,  he  copied  mechanically, 
thinking  of  something  else ;  the  result  was  physical  fatigue, 
and  an  accumulation  of  valueless  papers."" 

In  May  1842  the  first  railway  from  Paris  to  Rouen  was 
opened.     Flaubert  alluded  to  the  event  as  follows  : — 

'  Paris  is  no  better  favoured  than  Rouen  in  the  matter  of  the 
railway,  and  if  you  are  bored  with  hearing  it  talked  about,  you 
are  just  in  the  same  plight  as  myself.  It  is  impossible  to  go 
anywhere  without  hearing  people  say  :  "  Ah,  I  am  off  to  Rouen  ! 
I  come  from  Rouen !  Shall  you  go  to  Rouen  ?"  Never  has 
the  capital  of  Neustria  made  such  a  sensation  at  Lutetia 
Parisiorum.     One  is  simply  stewed  in  it.' 

The  next  month  a  long  letter  full  of  the  horrors  of  law- 
lectures  concluded  as  follows  : — 

'  When  I  think  of  all  of  you,  anyhow,  something  good  and 
gentle  breathes  fresh  life  into  me,  and  cheers  me ;  a  thousand 
tender  happy  suggestions  come  back  to  my  heart,  and  I  go 
from  one  to  the  other  watching  you  all  from  here,  as  you  move, 
speak  with  the  tones  of  your  own  voices,  get  up  and  sit  down 
in  those  clothes  of  yours,  that  I  know.  At  this  moment,  for 
example,  good  mousey,  I  have  your  full  gentle  laugh  in  my 
ears :  that  laugh  for  which  I  would  do  myself  to  death  in 
buffooneries,  for  which  I  would  give  my  very  last  grimace,  my 
last  drop  of  saliva ;  so  much  so,  that  sometimes  alone  in  my 
room  I  pull  faces  at  myself  in  the  looking-glass,  or  utter  the 
cry  of  the  "  gar9on  "  as  if  you  were  there  to  see  me  and  admire 
me ;  for  I  am  very  much  bored  by  my  present  audience.' 

Meanwhile,  to  others  Flaubert  did  not  appear  to  be 
particularly  miserable  at  Paris.  '  His  health,'  says  Maxinie 
Ducamp,  '  which  nothing  had  disturbed  permitted  him  to 
endure  fatigue  with  impunity ;  in  vain  did  ho  spend  the 
nights  in  working  at  law,  of  which  ho  mulorstood  nothing 
whatever ;  ran  about  the  whole  day,  dined  at  a  restaurant. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  27 

went  to  the  theatre,  he  continued  none  the  less  alert  in  his 
own  sluggish  way,  mixing  pleasure  and  study,  playing 
ducks  and  drakes  with  his  money,  spending  fifty  francs 
on  his  dinner  one  day,  living  the  next  day  on  a  crust  of 
bread  and  a  cake  of  chocolate,  chanting  prose,  howling  verse, 
going  mad  over  a  joke,  which  he  repeated  to  the  point  of 
surfeit,  filling  everything  with  his  noise,  despising  women 
whom  his  beauty  attracted,  coming  to  wake  me  up  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning  to  look  at  an  effect  of  moonlight  on 
the  Seine,  in  despair  at  not  being  able  to  find  good  Pont 
L'Eveque  cheese  at  Paris,  inventing  sauces  to  suit  brill,  and 
wishing  to  slap  the  face  of  Gustave  Planche,  who  had  spoken 
ill  of  Victor  Hugo.'' 

Meanwhile,  the  silent  anxious  mother  at  home  was  begin- 
ning to  have  misgivings  as  to  the  possible  result  of  the 
examination  ;  and,  mother-like,  was  proceeding  to  take  highly 
irregular  steps  in  the  hope  of  softening  the  heart  of  an 
examiner.  Her  son  did  not  sympathise  with  her  efforts  in 
this  direction  : — 

'  I  entreat  mother  not  to  pledge  M.  Getillat  to  make  interest 
on  my  behalf  with  gentlemen,  who  may  be  of  his  acquaintance. 
I  should  be  very  much  humiliated  by  it,  and  all  these  tricks  are 
not  in  my  line.  To  get  oneself  recommended  by  one's  friends 
is  bad  enough,  but  by  ladies  !  it  is  a  little  low,  a  little  too 
strong  for  me.  Besides  "  men  like  me "  are  not  made  to  be 
ploughed.  I  try  to  get  up  my  cheek  and  do  the  swell,  none 
the  less  I  am  not  over-confident.  Can  this  possibly  be  an 
excess  of  modesty  ? 

'  Friend  Hamard  (he  afterwards  married  Caroline  Flaubert, 
and  was  the  father  of  Madame  Commanville)  has  just  spent 
twenty-four  hours  in  prison  for  having  refused  to  go  on  guard. 
I  went  to  see  him.  He  was  rotting  on  the  damp  straw  of  the 
dungeons,  and  was  studying  the  laws  in  that  abode,  where 
those  are  confined  who  break  them.' 

Ernest  Chevalier  seems  also  to  have  been  concerned  at  the 


28  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

possible    outcome    of  Flauberfs    methods    of  pursuing   the 
study  of  jurisprudence,  and  got  his  answer  as  follows  : — 

'  Do  I  long  to  be  successful,  I,  to  be  a  great  man  ?  a  man 
known  in  a  district,  in  a  department,  in  three  provinces,  a  thin 
man,  a  man  with  a  weak  digestion  ?  Have  I  ambition,  like 
shoe-blacks,  who  aspire  to  be  boot-makers,  drivers  to  be  stud- 
grooms,  footmen  to  play  the  master,  your  man  of  ambition  to 
be  a  deputy  or  a  minister,  to  wear  a  ribbon,  be  a  town 
councillor  ?  All  that  seems  to  me  very  dismal,  and  attracts 
me  as  little  as  a  fourpenny  dinner  or  a  humanitarian  lecture. 
But  it  is  after  all  everybody's  mania;  and  were  it  only  to  be 
singular,  not  from  good  taste,  for  the  sake  of  good  breeding, 
not  from  inclination,  it  is  a  good  thing  now  to  remain  among 
the  crowd,  and  leave  all  that  to  the  scum,  who  are  forever 
pushing  themselves  and  swarm  in  every  street.  As  for  us,  let 
us  stay  at  home,  let  us  watch  the  public  pass  from  the  height 
of  our  balcony ;  and  if  from  time  to  time  we  are  over-bored, 
well,  let  us  spit  on  their  heads,  and  then  calmly  continue  our 
talk,  and  watch  the  sun  setting  in  the  west.' 

In  November  1842  the  student  of  law  was  seized  with  a 
fit  of  economy. 

'  I  have  made  a  contract  with  a  purveyor  in  the  neighbour- 
hood to  be  fed ;  I  have  in  front  of  me  thirty  dinners  duly  paid 
for,  if  dinners  they  can  be  called.  Mother  will  perhaps  be 
surprised  at  my  economical  notion ;  it  is  not  epicurean  ;  but 
convenient  and  cheap.  In  the  matter  of  rapid  eating  I  surpass 
all  the  customers  of  the  establishment.  I  affect  a  preoccupied 
style  there,  at  once  dark  and  careless,  which  makes  me  laugh 
prodigiously  when  I  am  alone  in  the  street.  The  proprietor  is 
full  of  respect  for  me,  my  tall  stature  has  prejudiced  him  in 
favour  of  my  stomach.  You  ask  me  if  I  have  an  arm  chair ;  my 
sitting  apparatus  consists  of  only  three  chairs,  and  a  kind  of 
divan,  which  can  serve  at  once  as  box,  bed,  library,  and  place 
to  put  my  slippers  away  in.  I  think  it  might  also  be  turned 
into  a  dog-kennel  or  stable  for  a  pony.  It  is  the  bed  which  I 
destine  for  my  parents,  when  they  come  to  see  me.     I  perceive 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  29 

that  I  have  said  something  rude  in  the  attempt  to  be  witty  and 
do  the  agreeable. 

*  In  all  the  comedies  in  the  world  sons  invent  a  heap  of 
humbug  to  bamboozle  their  fathers,  and  get  money  out  of 
them ;  I  have  no  humbug  to  invent,  but  I  do  want  some  money 
(money,  always  money,  this  is  the  word  they  invariably  have  in 
their  mouths).  I  have  the  sum  of  thirty-six  francs  and  some 
centimes  left.  You  will  draw  attention  to  the  fact,  that  I  have 
paid  for  my  furniture,  and  I  have  further  been  obliged  to  buy  a 
heap  of  things,  shovels,  tongs,  wood  to  warm  "  a  man  like  me," 
and  that  moreover  I  stayed  eight  days  at  a  hotel,  etc.  Therefore, 
I  beg  father  to  tell  me,  where  I  can  go  and  handle  a  bit  of  tin.' 

The  simple  youth,  who  wrote  the  above  ingenuous  lines, 
had  not  escaped  notice  in  the  capital.  Through  the  connec- 
tion formed  with  Pradier  he  had  been  introduced  to  Victor 
Hugo,  of  whom  he  wrote  in  January  1843  : — 

'  You  are  expecting  details  about  Victor  Hugo,  what  do  you 
want  me  to  say  about  him  .''  He  is  a  man  like  anybody  else, 
with  a  fairly  ugly  face,  and  a  fairly  common  exterior.  He  has 
splendid  teeth,  a  fine  forehead,  no  eyelashes  nor  eyebrows.  He 
speaks  little,  has  the  air  of  watching  himself,  and  wishing  not 
to  let  anything  escape  from  him ;  he  is  very  polished,  and  a 
little  affected.  I  am  very  much  pleased  with  the  sound  of  his 
voice.  I  took  pleasure  in  contemplating  him  at  close  quarters  ; 
I  looked  at  him  with  astonishment,  as  at  a  casket  in  which 
there  might  be  millions,  and  crown  diamonds,  thinking  of  all 
that  had  come  out  of  this  man  seated  beside  me  on  a  low  chair, 
fastening  his  eyes  on  his  right  hand,  which  has  written  so  many 
fine  things.  This,  however,  was  the  man  who  has  made  my 
heart  beat  the  most  since  I  was  born,  and  whom  perhaps  I 
loved  the  best  of  all  those  that  I  do  not  know.  The  talk  was 
of  punishments,  vengeance,  thieves,  etc.  etc.  The  great  man 
and  I  did  the  most  of  the  talking.  I  do  not  remember  whether 
I  said  good  things  or  bad  ones,  but  I  know  I  said  plenty  of 
them.  As  you  see,  I  go  fairly  often  to  the  Pradiers,  it  is  a 
house  that  I  like  very  much,  where  there  is  no  ceremony,  and 
which  is  altogether  in  my  style.' 


30  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Writing  to  Ernest  Chevalier  shortly  afterwards,  he  draws 
the  following  amusing  contrast  between  the  life  of  the 
student  of  the  Quartier  Latin  and  that  of  the  dandy  on  the 
fashionable  south  bank  of  the  Seine  : — 

'  On  the  other  side  of  the  water  there  are  young  folks  with 
twelve  hundred  pounds  a  year,  who  have  their  carriages  ;  the 
student  goes  on  foot,  or  on  the  top  of  the  omnibus,  where  his 
whole  body  is  drenched,  if  not  his  feet,  when  it  snows  as  it  did 
to-day.  The  young  folk  over  there  go  every  evening  to  the 
Opera,  to  the  Italians,  they  go  to  evening  receptions,  they 
smile  at  pretty  women,  who  would  have  us  turned  out  of  doors 
by  their  hall-porters  if  we  presumed  to  show  ourselves  in  their 
houses  with  our  shiny  overcoats,  our  three-year-old  costumes, 
and  our  elegant  spats.  Their  everyday  coats  are  our  holiday 
and  Sunday  coats.  They  go  to  dine  at  the  Rocher  de  Cancale 
and  the  Cafe  de  Paris  ;  the  jolly  student  feeds  himself  for  thirty 
half-pence,  at  Barilhaut !  They  make  love  to  marchionesses,  or 
princes'  mistresses  ;  the  poor  joker  of  a  student  loves  shop-girls, 
who  have  chilblains  on  their  hands,  for  the  poor  devil  has  his 
senses  like  another ;  but  not  too  often,  like  myself,  for  example, 
because  it  costs  money  ;  and  when  he  has  paid  his  tailor,  his 
boot-maker,  his  landlord,  his  book-seller,  his  Law  School,  his 
porter,  his  grocer,  his  eating-house,  he  has  to  buy  boots,  an 
overcoat,  books,  to  pay  his  fees,  his  wages,  buy  his  tobacco,  and 
he  has  nothing  left,  his  spirit  is  broken.  Never  mind,  it  is  as 
amusing  as  anything  else  to  study  law  at  Paris.  And  as  that 
is  entirely  my  opinion,  I  am  going  to  bed  directly.' 

In  August  1843  Flaubert  presented  himself  before  the 
examiners,  and  was  rejected.  A  man,  whose  memory  for 
the  particular  line  in  a  page,  in  which  a  word  occurred  that 
had  attracted  his  notice  years  before,  was  almost  miraculous ; 
a  man  gifted  with  the  true  scholar^s  memory,  and  who,  in 
after  years,  was  able  by  virtue  of  this  gift  to  achieve  work 
such  as  only  one  or  two  other  men  have  attempted,  could 
not  bring  to  his  aid  even  the  mediocre  standard  of  remini- 
scence necessary  to  pass  an  examination  in  a  comparatively 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  31 

small  number  of  books.  He  was  absolutely  paralysed  in  the 
presence  of  his  examiners ;  stumbled,  stuttered,  gave  the 
wrong  answers  to  the  questions,  and,  in  spite  of  their  wish 
to  help  him,  absolutely  collapsed.  He  returned  to  Rouen, 
and  the  School  of  Law  saw  him  not  again. 


CHAPTER  III 


ILLNESS MAXIME    DUCAMP 


In  the  month  of  October,  at  about  the  time  when  he 
should  have  returned  to  Paris,  Flaubert  was  seized  with  an 
hy.sterico-epileptic  attack.  The  nature  of  this  disease  was 
even  less  well  understood  then,  than  it  is  now.  Pere  Flaubert 
accepted  the  conclusion,  to  which  other  eminent  medical 
authorities  had  come,  that  epilepsy  was  due  to  a  plethora 
of  vitality  ;  and  in  the  case  of  Gustave,  the  expansive  noisy 
giant,  there  was  every  excuse  for  believing  that  this  might 
be  the  case.  He  bled,  starved,  drenched  his  unfortunate 
son,  with  all  the  more  vigour  that  his  pride,  both  paternal 
and  professional,  was  wounded  by  the  calamity.  In  spite  of 
the  treatment  Flaubert  eventually  shook  off  the  disease ;  a 
journey  in  Brittany  with  Maxime  Ducamp  in  1847  nearly 
cured  him ;  and  another  journey  in  the  East  with  the  same 
friend,  1849-1851,  caused  a  complete  suspension.  The  attacks 
did  not  return  till  the  closing  years  of  his  life. 

Nevertheless  the  disease,  and  possibly  the  erroneous  treat- 
ment, made  a  deep  mark  on  the  thread  of  his  existence. 
From  this  time  onwards,  as  he  told  George  Sand,  he  '  was 
afraid  of  life."*  The  three  years  spent  under  the  supervision 
of  a  medical  attendant  or  a  servant  were  years  of  misery  to 
him.  He  did  his  best  to  overcome  the  depression  and  the 
weakness  ;   he  experimented  on  himself  in  dealing  with  the 


32 


IJFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  33 

latter,  and  learned  to  control  it,  but  the  nightmare  of  the 
months  of  uncertainty  was  always  there,  and  though  the 
violent  seizures  passed  into  abeyance,  a  nervous  irritability 
remained.  Intellectually  he  was  not  affected  by  it ;  epilepsy 
is  not  in  all  its  forms  a  disease  of  the  intellect.  The  first 
Caesar  was  an  epileptic,  so  was  the  first  Napoleon ;  there  is 
every  reason  for  believing  Socrates  to  have  been  epileptic  ; 
most  of  us  can  reckon  among  our  friends  or  acquaintance 
men  or  women  of  great  personal  charm,  and  brilliant 
faculties,  who  are  epileptic ;  for  the  disease  has  many 
manifestations,  from  an  almost  unnoticed  and  unnoticeable 
momentary  suspension  of  consciousness,  to  the  violent  and 
sometimes  protracted  convulsions  generally  associated  with 
the  '  falling  sickness.'  At  one  time  such  persons  were 
worshipped  as  possessing  something  of  a  mysterious  divinity  ; 
without  going  to  this  extreme,  we  may  at  least  avoid  the 
error  of  confounding  one  disease  with  another,  and  associat- 
ing epilepsy  with  a  failure  of  intellect,  as  Maxime  Ducamp 
has  done. 

It  is  time  to  speak  of  this  friend  to  whom  Flaubert  owed 
so  much,  and  so  little.  His  first  meeting  with  P'laubert  has 
already  been  described ;  he  at  once  fell  a  victim  to  the 
fascinations  of  the  glorious  giant,  and  lived  in  the  closest 
intimacy  with  him  for  the  remainder  of  the  student  days. 
While  he  worshipped  and  admired  his  friend's  superb  ability, 
he  to  some  extent  appropriated  him,  endeavoured  to  control 
him,  and,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,  to  narrow 
him  down  to  his  own  conception  of  what  a  literary  man 
should  be.  All  this  unconsciously.  He  was  unaware  of  his 
own  limitations.  We  are  reminded  of  him  in  a  passage  in 
the  Ediwation  Sentimentale,  in  which  Flaubert,  speaking  of 
a  less  agreeable  character,  observes :  '  There  are  some 
friends,  who  are  never  content  unless  they  are  forcing  their 

c 


34  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

friends  to  do  what  is  displeasing  to  them."'  This  apparently 
was  the  bias  of  Maxime  Ducamp,  and  in  later  years  it 
produced  a  breach  between  himself  and  Flaubert,  which  was 
only  healed  late  in  the  life  of  the  latter.  On  the  other 
hand,  his  affection  was  perfect.  On  the  first  opportunity,  he 
gave  himself  up  to  attending  his  friend  in  his  illness ;  he 
undertook  the  responsible  and  arduous  task  of  travelling 
with  him  for  three  months  in  Brittany,  when  his  health  was 
by  no  means  re-established ;  and  again  gladly  accepted  the 
same  responsibility,  for  nearly  two  years,  when  the  East 
was  the  scene  of  their  adventures,  and  for  nine  years  there 
was  no  cloud  upon  their  friendship.  An  adequate  oppor- 
tunity of  discussing  his  literary  standpoint  will  be  found 
later  on. 

Li  June  1844  Flaubert  was  able  to  write  the  following 
letter  to  Louis  de  Cormenin,  one  of  the  Paris  band  : — 

'  How  guilty  I  must  seem  to  you,  my  dear  Louis  !  What  can 
you  make  of  a  man  who  is  ill  half  his  time,  who  is  so  wearied 
the  other  half  that  he  has  neither  the  strength  nor  the  intelli- 
gence to  write  even  gentle  easy  things,  like  the  letter  that  I 
should  like  to  send  you.  Do  you  know  weariness  ?  Not  that 
common  vulgar  boredom  which  comes  from  idleness  or  ill-health, 
but  that  modern  weariness  which  gnaws  a  man's  entrails,  and 
turns  an  intelligent  being  into  a  walking  shadow,  a  thinking 
apparition.  Ah  !  I  am  sorry  for  you  if  that  leprosy  is  known 
to  you.  Sometimes  the  sufferer  thinks  he  is  cured,  but  one  fine 
day  he  wakes  up  suffering  more  than  ever.  You  know  those 
coloured  glasses  with  which  the  summer-houses  of  retired 
hatters  are  adorned  !  one  sees  the  country  in  red,  blue,  and 
yellow  through  them.  Weariness  is  the  same.  The  most 
beautiful  things  seen  through  it  take  its  colour  and  reflect  its 
sadness.  As  for  me,  it  is  a  malady  of  my  youth  which  comes 
back  on  my  evil  days  such  as  to-day.  They  can  not  say  of  me 
as  of  Pantagruel  :  '  and  then  he  studied  an  evil  half  hour,  but 
always  had  his  mind  in  the  kitchen.'  It  is  in  something  worse 
that  I  have  my  mind  :  it  is  in  the  leeches  that  they  put  on  me 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  35 

yesterday  and  that  scratch  my  ears,  it  is  in  the  pill  that  I  have 
just  swallowed,  and  which  is  still  a-sailing  in  my  stomach  on  the 
glass  of  water  that  followed  it. 

'  Do  you  know  that  we  have  no  cause  to  be  gay  ?  There  is 
Maxim  e  gone  ;  his  absence  must  weigh  heavy  upon  you  ;  as  for 
me,  I  have  my  nerves,  which  leave  me  little  quiet.  When  shall 
we  all  meet  again  in  Paris  in  good  health,  and  good  temper  ? 
And  yet  what  a  fine  thing  it  would  be,  a  little  club  of  good 
fellows,  all  sons  of  art,  living  together,  and  meeting  once  or 
twice  a  week  to  eat  a  good  mouthful,  washed  down  with  good 
wine,  and  savouring  some  succulent  poet  the  while  !  I  have 
often  foi-med  this  dream  :  it  is  less  ambitious  than  many  others, 
but  perhaps  will  not  be  realised  any  the  more  for  that.  I  have 
just  seen  the  sea,  and  have  returned  to  my  dull  town ;  that  is 
why  I  am  stupider  than  ever.  The  contemplation  of  beautiful 
things  always  makes  one  sad  for  a  time.  One  would  say  that 
we  are  made  to  bear  only  a  certain  dose  of  beauty,  a  little  more 
fatigues  us.  That  is  why  mediocre  natures  prefer  the  prospect 
of  a  river  to  that  of  the  ocean  ;  and  why  there  are  so  many 
people  who  pronounce  Beranger  the  first  French  poet.  Do  not 
let  us,  however^  confound  the  yawn  of  the .  middle-class  man  in 
the  presence  of  Homer  with  the  deep  meditation,  the  intense, 
almost  painful,  reverie  which  comes  upon  the  poet's  heart,  when 
he  measures  the  giants,  and  says  to  himself  in  his  abasement : 
O  Altitudo ! 

'  For  this  reason  I  admire  Nero  :  he  is  the  culminating  man  of 
the  ancient  world.  Woe  be  to  him  who  does  not  shudder  in 
reading  Suetonius!  I  have  recently  read  the  life  of  Heliogabalus 
in  Plutarch.  That  man  has  a  beauty  diffei-ent  from  that  of  Nero. 
He  is  more  Asiatic,  more  delirious,  more  romantic,  more  aban- 
doned :  it  is  the  evening  after  the  day,  madness  by  torchlight, 
but  Nero  is  calmer,  finer,  more  ancient,  more  statuesque,  in  a 
word  :  superior.  The  masses  have  lost  their  poetry  since 
Christianity.  Don't  speak  to  me  of  modern  times  in  the 
matter  of  the  grandiose.  There  is  not  wherewithal  to  satisfy 
the  imagination  of  the  lowest  grade  of  journalist. 

'  I  am  delighted  to  see  that  you  join  with  me  in  hatred  of 
Saint  Beuve  and  all  his  shop.  I  love  before  everything  the 
nervous,  substantial,  clear  phrase  with  swelling  muscle,  gleaming 


36  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

skin  ;  I  like  masculine,  not  feminine,  phrases,  like  those  of 
Lamartine  very  often,  and,  in  a  still  lower  degree,  those  of 
Villemain.  The  men  that  I  habitually  read,  my  bedside  books, 
are  Montaigne,  Rabelais,  Regnier,  La  Bruyere  and  Le  Sage.  I 
admit  that  I  adore  Voltaire's  prose,  and  that  for  me  his  stories 
have  an  excellent  relish.  I  read  Candide  twenty  times :  I 
translated  it  into  English,  and  I  have  read  it  over  again  from 
time  to  time.  Now  I  am  re-reading  Tacitus.  In  a  little  time, 
when  I  am  better,  I  shall  take  up  my  Homer  and  Shakespeare 
again.  Homer  and  Shakespeare  ! — everything  is  there  !  the 
other  poets,  even  the  greatest,  seem  small  beside  them.' 

There  are  no  more  letters  for  nearly  a  year.  Flauberfs 
melancholy  for  a  time  increased  ;  a  boat  was  bought  for 
him,  but  he  soon  ceased  to  use  it,  unable  to  submit  himself 
to  the  presence  of  the  servant  who  was  ordered  to  accompany 
him. 

\\\  1845,  Caroline  Flaubert  married  ;  Gustave  was  in  very 
much  better  health,  and  the  whole  family  accompanied  the 
young  couple  on  their  wedding  trip.  Lyons,  Marseilles, 
Genoa,  Milan,  Geneva,  were  among  the  places  visited.  The 
journey  brought  small  comfort  to  Gustave ;  his  father  and 
he  were  not  of  the  same  opinion  as  to  what  things  were 
interesting  to  see,  and  what  was  the  most  interesting  way  in 
which  to  see  them.  At  Nice  he  forebore  to  visit  the  tomb 
of  Desnoyers,  because  the  step  would  have  appeared  comic ; 
he  wanted  to  see  Aigues  Mortes,  and  other  places,  but  did 
not  do  so,  probably  for  the  same  reason.  At  Genoa,  in  the 
Palazzo  Doria,  however,  he  saw  a  })icture  of  the  Temptation 
of  St.  Anthony  by  Breughel,  which  suggested  the  work  on 
that  subject  foreshadowed  in  the  Temptation  of  Smar. 


CHAPTER   IV 

CROISSET DEATH THE    MIDDLE-CLASS    PERSON 

A  YEAR  before  his  death,  at  the  beginning  of  1845,  Pere 
Flaubert  bought  a  house  at  Croisset,  the  first  village  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Seine  below  Rouen.  In  this  house  his  son 
was  destined  to  spend  nearly  all  his  life,  and  to  write  all  his 
best  work.  Those  who  have  a  taste  for  visiting  Stratford- 
on-Avon ;  who  gape  before  beds  in  which  Queen  Elizabeth 
has  slept ;  who  do  not  leave  Florence  without  exploring  a 
'  certain  dark  narrow  street,  one  of  whose  houses  bears  the 
inscription  "  Qui  nacque  il  divhio  poeta  "  ;'  who  sentimentally 
contemplate  the  towers  of  Galileo  and  Roger  Bacon ;  who 
fall  on  their  knees  at  the  gateway  of  Rydal  Mount,  and 
steep  themselves  in  the  silences  of  Grasmere  churchyard  out 
of  the  season  ;  those  persons,  in  short,  who  have  the  passion 
for  shrines,  and  the  instincts  of  pilgrimage,  will  be  outraged 
at  learning  that  Croisset  is  no  more,  the  house  has  been 
replaced  by  a  factory,  and  of  all  that  was  associated  with 
the  life  of  Flaubert  in  that  place,  nothing  remains  but  a 
magnificent  tulip-tree,  which  stood  in  front  of  his  windows. 
Flaubert  himself  was  a  devout  worshipper  at  sacred  places  : 
Byron's  prison  at  Chillon,  Voltaire's  bedroom  at  Ferney,  the 
birthplace  of  Victor  Hugo  at  Besan^on,  Chateaubriand's 
castle  and  grave,  the  bed  of  Diane  de  Poitiers,  are  some  of 
the  altars  at  which  he  on  different  occasions  paid  his  vows. 

37 


38  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

But,  after  all,  the  room  in  which  a  man  was  born,  died,  or 
even  worked,  does  little  to  change  our  conception  of  hnn 
when  that  conception  is  based  upon  an  understanding  of  his 
mind.  Chalfont  St.  Giles  is  a  pretty  place,  but  when  we 
have  seen  it.  Paradise  Lost  is  no  less  majestic  ;  even  if  we 
had  the  Globe  Theatre  preserved  under  a  glass  case,  Hamlet 
would  be  no  more  and  no  less  than  Hamlet.  Wordsworth 
never  saw  the  plain  slate  grave-stone  at  Grasmere  ;  and  how 
much  of  Shakespeare's  life  remains  at  Stratford  more  than  in 
other  quiet  Midland  towns  ?  To  see  what  the  poet  has  seen, 
to  breathe  the  air  that  he  breathed,  to  watch  the  stately 
ships  move  on  as  he  saw  them  move,  hear  the  laughter  from 
the  river  as  he  heard  it,  to  note  with  him  the  lamps  gleaming 
upon  the  water  and  lending  a  deeper  mystery  to  most 
mysterious  night, — these  are  profitable  experiences,  and  these 
may  be  felt,  though  a  local  cataclysm  should  swallow  up 
Grasmere,  with  its  lake,  its  church,  and  its  churchyard,  and 
palatial  hotels,  and  though  there  is  nothing  left  of  the  house 
at  Croisset. 

The  move  to  Croisset  took  place  some  time  in  1845,  and 
was  soon  followed  by  disaster.  In  January  1846,  the  gene- 
rous, capable,  hard-headed,  loving  but  unsympathetic  father 
died  ;  and  three  months  later  Caroline  Flaubert  died  also, 
after  giving  birth  to  a  daughter.  Gustave  at  once  wrote  to 
Maxime  Ducamp  from  Rouen,  where  the  family  still  had  a 
house.  Caroline  Flaubert  had  married  young  Hamard, 
whom  we  last  saw  rotting  on  the  straw  of  a  dungeon. 

'Rouen,  March  1846. 
'  Hamard  is  leaving  my  room,  where  he  stood  sobbing  at  the 
corner  of  the  chimney-piece ;  my  mother  is  a  weeping  statue. 
Caroline  speaks,  smiles,  caresses  us,  says  gentle  affectionate 
words  to  all  of  us,  she  loses  her  memory,  everything  is  con- 
fused in   her  head  ;    she   did   not  know  whether   it   was   I   or 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  39 

Achille  who  had  gone  to  Paris.  What  gracefulness  there  is  in 
the  sick,  and  what  strange  gestui'es  I  The  child  feeds  and 
cries.  Achille  says  nothing,  and  knows  not  what  to  say. 
What  a  house !  What  a  hell  !  And  I }  My  eyes  are  as  dry 
as  marble.  It  is  strange.  Expansive,  fluid,  abundant,  over- 
flowing as  I  feel  myself  in  fictitious  sorrow,  real  griefs  stay  in 
my  heart,  bitter  and  hard ;  they  crystallise  there,  as  they  come. 
It  seems  that  Misfortune  is  upon  us,  and  that  she  will  not  go, 
till  she  has  glutted  herself.  Once  again  I  am  to  see  the  black 
cloth,  and  hear  the  sordid  sound  of  the  nailed  boots  of  the 
undertaker's  men  descending  the  stairs.  I  prefer  to  have  no 
hope ;  on  the  contrary  to  enter  in  that  way  into  the  woe  that  is 
impending.  Marjolin  arrives  this  evening;  what  will  he  do.'' 
Farewell.  I  had  a  presentiment  yesterday,  that,  when  I  saw 
you  again,  I  should  not  be  gay.' 

'  Croisset,  March  1846. 

'  I  did  not  wish  you  to  come  here ;  I  dreaded  your  tender- 
ness. I  have  had  enough  of  the  sight  of  Hamard  without 
seeing  you.  Perhaps  you  would  have  been  still  less  calm  than 
ourselves.  In  a  few  days  I  will  summon  you,  and  then  I  count 
on  you. 

'  It  was  yesterday  at  eleven  o'clock  that  we  buried  her,  poor 
child.  They  put  her  wedding  di'ess  on  her,  with  bunches  of 
roses,  immortelles  and  violets.  I  spent  the  whole  night  watch- 
ing her.  She  was  straight,  lying  on  her  bed  in  that  room, 
where  you  have  heard  her  play.  She  seemed  taller  and  more 
beautiful  than  in  life,  with  that  long  white  veil,  which  went 
down  to  her  feet.  In  the  morning,  when  all  was  finished,  I 
gave  her  a  last  kiss  in  her  coffin.  I  leaned  over  it,  I  placed 
my  head  in  it,  and  I  felt  the  lead  give  beneath  my  hands.  It 
is  I  who  had  the  cast  taken.  I  saw  the  coarse  paws  of  those 
clowns  handle  her,  and  cover  her  with  plaster.  I  shall  have 
her  hand  and  her  face.  I  shall  beg  Pradier  to  make  me  a 
bust  of  her,  and  I  shall  put  it  in  my  room.  I  have  for  myself 
her  large  striped  wrapper,  a  lock  of  her  hair,  the  table  and  the 
desk  at  which  she  used  tc  "^rite.  That  is  all,  all  that  remains 
of  those  we  have  loved.  Hamard  would  come  with  us.  On 
arriving  in  the  cemetery,  behind  whose  walls  I  used  to  walk  in 
procession  with  the  school,  Hamard  kneeled  on  the  edge  of 


40  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

the  grave,  and  scut  her  kisses  througli  his  tears.  The  grave 
was  too  narrow,  the  coffin  could  not  sink  in.  They  shook  it, 
pulled  it  all  ways,  took  a  shovel,  crowbars,  and  in  the  end  a 
grave-digger  stepped  on  it,  on  the  place  where  the  head  was, 
to  force  it  down.  I  was  standing-  at  the  side,  my  hat  in  my 
hand,  I  threw  it  away  with  a  cry. 

'  I  will  tell  you  the  rest  face  to  face,  for  I  could  not  write  all 
that.  I  was  as  dry  as  a  tombstone,  but  in  a  state  of  horrible 
irritation.  I  wanted  to  tell  you,  what  I  have  just  written, 
thinking  to  please  you.  You  have  enough  understanding,  and 
you  love  me  well  enough  to  understand  that  word  "  please," 
which  would  make  a  commonplace  person  laugh.  Here  we 
are  back  at  Croisset  since  Sunday.  What  a  journey  !  Alone 
with  my  mother  and  the  child  which  cried !  The  last  time 
that  I  went  from  there,  it  was  with  you,  do  you  remember .'' 
Of  the  four,  who  used  to  live  there  two  remain.  The  trees 
have  no  leaves  yet,  the  wind  whistles,  the  river  is  flowing  full, 
the  rooms  are  cold  and  unfurnished.  My  mother  is  better 
than  she  might  be.  She  occupies  herself  with  her  daughter's 
child,  puts  it  to  sleep  in  her  own  room,  rocks  it,  tends  it,  as 
well  as  she  can.  She  tries  to  make  herself  a  mother  again ; 
will  she  succeed  ?  The  reaction  has  not  yet  come,  and  I  fear 
it  terribly.  I  am  overwhelmed,  stupefied ;  I  might  well  need 
to  resume  my  art  life,  calm  and  full  of  long  meditation.  I 
laugh  for  pity  at  the  vanity  of  the  human  will,  when  ],  think 
that  it  is  now  six  years  since  I  have  been  wanting  to  take  up 
my  Greek  again,  and  that  circumstances  are  such,  that  I  have 
not  yet  reached  the  verbs.  Farewell,  dear  Max,  I  embrace 
you  tenderly.' 

A  month  later  he  again  wrote  to  Maxima  Ducamp.     The 

allusion    to    Novembre    is    to    a    romance    which    he    had 

written  early  in  the  Paris  days,  and  had  read  to  Ducamp  ; 

he  destroyed  the  manuscript  along  with  others  in  1870,  but 

a  fragment  survived,  and  is  published  in  the  volume  entitled 

Par  les  champs  et  par  les  greves.      A  wild  bit  of  work  in 

his  lyrical  vein. 

'April  1846. 
'  1  have  taken  a  large  sheet  of  paper  with  the  intention  of 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  41 

writing  you  a  long  letter ;  perhaps  I  shall  only  send  you  three 
lines ;  that  is  as  things  will  turn  out.  The  sky  is  grey^  the 
Seine  is  yellow,  the  turf  is  green,  the  trees  have  hardly  any 
leaves,  they  are  beginning,  it  is  the  Spring,  the  season  of  joy 
and  love.  "  But  there  is  no  more  spring-time  in  my  heart  than 
on  the  high  road  where  the  bright  sun  wearies  the  eyes,  where 
the  dust  rises  in  clouds."  Do  you  remember  where  that  comes? 
It  is  in  Novemhre.  I  was  nineteen  years  old  when  I  wrote  that, 
six  years  ago  soon.  It  is  strange  with  how  little  faith  in  happi- 
ness I  was  born. 

'  I  had  a  complete  presentiment  of  life  in  my  earliest  days.  It 
was  like  a  sickly  smell  of  cooking  escaping  through  a  ventilator. 
One  has  no  need  to  have  eaten  to  know  that  it  will  make  one 
sick.  I  do  not  complain  of  that,  however ;  my  last  misfortunes 
have  saddened  me,  but  have  not  surprised  me.  Without  in 
the  least  doing  away  with  the  sensation,  I  have  analysed  them 
like  an  artist.  This  occupation  has  in  its  melancholy  fashion 
refreshed  my  sorrow.  If  I  had  expected  better  things  of  life, 
I  "should  have  cursed  it ;  I  have  not  done  that.  You  would 
perhaps  consider  me  a  heartless  man,  if  I  were  to  tell  you,  that 
I  do  not  consider  the  present  condition  the  most  pitiful  of  all. 
When  I,  had  nothing  to  complain  of,  I  thought  myself  still  more 
to  be  pitied.  After  all,  that  has  perhaps  to  do  with  practice. 
By  dint  of  expanding  itself  to  suffering,  the  soul  attains  to  a 
prodigious  capacity  for  it ;  what  once  filled  it  to  the  point  of 
bursting,  now  barely  covers  the  bottom  of  the  vessel.  I  have 
at  least  one  infinite  consolation,  a  foundation  on  which  I  rest ;  it 
is  this :  I  do  not  see  that  anything  further  can  happen  to  me  in 
the  way  of  troubles.  There  is  the  death  of  my  mother,  which  I 
foresee  more  or  less  distant ;  but  with  less  selfishness,  I  ought 
to  summon  it  for  her.  Is  there  any  humanity  in  helping  the 
hopeless  ?  Have  you  reflected  how  we  are  created  for  sorrow  } 
Men  faint  in  voluptuous  orgies,  never  in  grief ;  tears  are  to  the 
heart  what  water  is  to  the  fishes.  I  am  I'esigned  to  every- 
thing, ready  for  anything ;  I  have  reefed  my  sails,  and  wait 
for  the  squall,  my  back  to  the  wind,  and  my  head  on  my 
breast.  It  is  said  that  religious  people  endure  the  troubles  of 
this  world  better  than  ourselves ;  but  the  man  who  is  con- 
vinced of  the  great  harmony,  who  hopes  for  the  annihilation 


42  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

of  his  body  at  the  same  time  that  his  soul  perhaps  will 
return  to  sleep  in  the  bosom  of  the  great  whole,  to  animate 
maybe  the  bodies  of  panthers^  or  to  glitter  in  the  stars,  he  is  no 
more  tormented.  The  happiness  of  the  mystics  has  been  too 
much  cried  up.  Cleopatra  died  as  calmly  as  Saint  Francis. 
I  believe  that  the  dogma  of  a  future  life  was  invented  by 
the  fear  of  Death,  or  the  longing  to  snatch  something  from 
him. 

'  Yesterday  my  niece  was  baptised.  The  child,  the  bystanders, 
myself,  the  priest  himself,  who  had  just  dined,  and  was  all  red- 
faced,  did  not  understand,  any  of  us,  what  we  were  doing. 
Contemplating  all  these  symbols,  meaningless  for  us,  I  had  the 
feeling  of  being  present  at  some  ceremony  of  an  old  world 
religion  dug  up  out  of  its  dust.  It  was  very  simple,  and  very 
familiar,  and  yet  I  could  not  get  over  my  amazement.  The 
priest  muttered  at  a  gallop  Latin,  which  he  did  not  understand ; 
we  others  did  not  listen;  the  child  held  its  little  bare  head 
under  the  water,  which  was  poured  on  it,  the  taper  burned,  and 
the  verger  responded  :  Amen  !  For  certain  the  most  intelligent 
thing  there  was  the  stones,  which  had  formerly  understood  all 
that,  and  which  perhaps  had  retained  something. 

'  I  am  going  to  set  myself  to  work  at  last — at  last  !  I  have  a 
longing,  I  have  a  hope  to  fag  away  immeasurably  and  for  long. 
Have  we  laid  our  finger  upon  the  emptiness  of  ourselves,  of  our 
plans,  of  our  happiness,  of  beauty,  goodness,  everything  ?  I 
certainly  appear  to  myself  very  limited,  very  mediocre.  I  am 
acquiring  an  artistic  niceness,  which  makes  me  desperate ;  I 
shall  end  with  never  writing  another  line.  I  think  I  might  do 
something  good,  but  I  always  ask  myself  to  what  purpose  .''  It 
is  the  more  odd,  because  I  do  not  feel  myself  discouraged ;  on 
the  contrary,  I  enter  more  than  ever  into  the  pure  idea,  the 
infinite.  I  breathe  there,  it  attracts  me,  I  become  a  Brahmin, 
or  rather  I  am  going  a  bit  mad.  I  have  a  strong  suspicion  that 
I  shall  not  compose  anything  this  summer.  If  there  were  any- 
thing it  would  be  drama ;  my  oriental  story  is  put  off  to  next 
year,  perhaps  to  the  following,  perhaps  for  ever.  If  my  mother 
dies,  my  plans  are  made  ;  I  sell  everything  and  I  go  to  live  at 
Rome,  Syracuse,  Naples.  Will  you  follow  me  ?  A  little  calm, 
great  God !   a  little  rest ;   nothing  but  that.     I  do  not  ask  for 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  43 

happiness.  You  seem  to  me  happy,  that  is  sad.  Happiness 
is  a  purple  mantle  with  a  ragged  lining  ;  when  one  wants  to 
cover  one's  self  with  it,  everything  flies  to  the  wind,  and  one 
remains  frozen  stiff  in  those  chilly  rags  one  had  thought  so 
warm.' 

The  letters  to  Alfred  le  Poittevin  bear  a  different  stamp 
from  those  written  to  other  friends.  The  man  himself  was 
something  entirely  out  of  the  common  mould.  He  died 
young,  having  brought  no  work  to  light  by  which  he  can  be 
judged.  As  a  rule  extremely  reserved,  with  Flaubert  he 
expanded ;  together  they  had  travelled  in  the  realm  of 
metaphysics,  they  had  studied  not  merely  the  rules  of 
thought,  and  the  machinery  with  which  thought  should  be 
expressed,  they  had  tried  to  discover  the  meaning  of  the 
systems  in  which  human  thought,  relative  to  the  unseen,  has 
from  time  to  time  expressed  itself.  Alfred  le  Poittevin 
used  to  call  himself  intellectually  a  Greek  of  the  Lower 
Empire.  Flauberfs  distinctive  work,  the  historical  analysis 
of  the  human  mind,  which,  in  two  different  regions,  is  the 
subject  of  the  St.  Anthoni/,  and  of  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet., 
was  the  outcome  of  his  comminiion  with  Alfred  le  Poittevin. 
The  sound  human  affection  of  Maxime  Ducamp  coimted  for 
much  in  his  life ;  for  still  more,  the  sympathy  with  Louis 
Bouilhet  in  the  matter  of  literary  form,  and  in  a})preciation 
of  the  sacredness  of  letters ;  but  the  sympathy  of  Alfred  le 
Poittevin  touched  sj)heres  to  which  neither  of  these  had 
access.  There  are  not  many  letters  addressed  to  him,  for 
the  reason  that  he  lived  close  to  Rouen,  and  that  the  friends 
often  met. 

It  is  in  a  letter  to  him  that  is  first  revealed  in  all  its 
intensity  Flauberfs  disgust  at  the  commonplace,  the  middle- 
class  life,  with  its  material  preoccupations,  its  inept  ejacula- 
tions, its  self-complacency,  smug  vices,  noisy  rant. 


44  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  There  is  now  so  great  an  interval  between  me  and  the  rest 
of  the  world  that  I  am  sometimes  amazed  to  hear  the  most 
natural,  the  most  simple  things.  The  commonest  expression 
sometimes  holds  me  in  singular  admiration.  There  are  actions, 
voices,  that  I  cannot  get  over,  and  inanities  which  almost  make 
me  reel.  Have  you  ever  listened  attentively  to  people  who 
were  speaking  in  a  language  that  you  did  not  understand  ?  I 
am  at  that  stage.  By  dint  of  wishing  to  understand  everything, 
everything  makes  me  think.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that 
this  condition  of  amazement  is  not  stupidity.  The  middle-class 
man,  for  example,  is  to  me  something  unlimited.  You  can't 
imagine  what  a  treat  the  "  fi'ightful "  disaster  of  Monville  has 
caused  me  ;  to  naake  a  thing  interesting,  it  is  enough  to  con- 
template it  for  a  long  time.' 

The  disaster  of  Monville  near  Rouen  is  often  alluded  to  in 
the  correspondence.  A  destructive  water-spout  broke  over 
the  place.  Among*  the  notes  for  the  continuation  of  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet  is  the  following  excerpt  from  Raspail :  '  The 
potato  disease  was  caused  by  the  disaster  of  Monville.  The 
meteor  acted  more  in  the  valleys,  it  withdrew  the  caloric. 
It  is  the  residt  of  a  sudden  chill,"* 

Alfred  le  Poittevin  married  in  1846  a  Mile,  de  Maupas- 
sant, and  the  young  couple  moved  from  Rouen.  Flaubert 
felt  this  to  be  a  double  desertion  ;  and  it  is  in  this  spirit  that 
he  writes  of  the  event  to  Ernest  Chevalier,  who  himself  was 
living  in  Corsica.     The  letter  concludes  : — 

'  My  poor  mother  is  always  mourning — you  have  no  idea  of 
a  grief  like  hers.  If  there  is  a  God,  one  must  admit  that  He  is 
not  always  in  a  fit  of  good-humour.  My  courage  sometimes 
fails  to  bear  all  alone  the  burden  of  this  great  despair  that 
nothing  lightens.' 

But  he  nobly  went  through  with  his  task  notwithstanding. 
Ducamp  writes  of  him  many  years  later  : — 

'  Gustave  adored  his  mother,  never  left  her,  lived  with  her 
and  for  her.     What  he  had  considered  a  duty  after  the  death  of 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  45 

his  fother  had  become  a  necessity  of  his  nature ;  he  felt  uneasy, 
almost  unhappy  away  from  her ;  I  alone  know  the  sacrifices  that 
he  made  to  her,  and  which  he  never  regretted.  This  impetuous, 
imperious  giant,  flying  out  at  th<^  least  contradiction,  was  the 
most  respectful  son,  the  gentlest,  the  most  attentive  that  a 
mother  could  dream  of.' 


CHAPTER  V 


LOVE LOUIS  BOUILHET PARODY 


Flaubert  spent  some  weeks  of  the  summer  of  1846  in 
Paris,  and  in  the  last  days  of  July  met  a  lady  in  Pradier*'s 
studio  with  whom  he  corresponded  for  eight  years ;  the 
correspondence  was  to  some  extent  interrupted  during  his 
travels  in  Brittany  in  1847,  and  his  Eastern  journey,  1849-51. 
The  lady  in  question  was  well  known  in  Parisian  literary 
circles  ;  she  kept  a  salon  where  artists  and  Bohemians  met. 
She  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Victor  Hugo,  Victor  Cousin, 
and  others.  She  died  in  1875,  before  Flaubert ;  and  her 
friends,  fortunately  for  us,  restored  the  letters  to  his  family. 
She  was  a  married  woman  living  apart  from  her  husband, 
who  died  in  1851. 

There  are  allusions  in  these  letters  to  a  previous  love 
affair.  When  Flaubert  was  fourteen  he  saw  at  Trouville, 
and  forthwith  adored,  a  lady  who  appears  as  Mme.  Arnoux 
in  the  Education  Sentimentale ;  this  calf-love  made  a  great 
impression  upon  him,  the  more  so  perhaps  that  he  never 
revealed  it  to  the  object  of  his  affections,  though  they 
became  friends.  It  is  in  these  two  instances  only,  that  his 
equilibrium  was  seriously  disturbed  by  the  passion  of  love. 

'August  4,  1846.      Tuesday,  midnight. 
'  Twelve  hours  ago  we  were  still  together  !     How  distant  that 
is  !     At  present  the  night  is  warm  and  balmy  ;  I  hear  tlie  great 


46 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  47 

tulip-tree  under  my  window  rustle  in  the  wind,  and  when  I  lift 
my  head  I  see  the  moon  reflected  in  the  river.  I  have  just 
arranged  all  alone,  and  carefully  put  away,  everything  that  you 
gave  me ;  your  two  letters  are  in  the  embroidered  satchel ;  I 
am  going  to  read  them  again,  when  I  have  sealed  mine.  I  did 
not  like  to  take  my  ordinary  note-paper  to  write  to  you ;  it  is 
edged  with  black ;  let  nothing  sad  ever  pass  from  me  to  you  ! 

'  I  would  like  to  talk  to  you  of  nothing  but  joy,  and  surround 
you  with  a  calm  continuous  happiness  to  pay  you  a  little  for  all 
that  you  have  given  me  open-handed  in  the  generosity  of  your 
love.  I  am  afraid  of  being  cold,  dry,  selfish,  and  yet,  God  knows, 
what  is  going  on  in  me  at  this  moment !  What  a  recollection  ! 
What  a  longing  !  Ah  !  those  two  good  drives  of  ours  !  How 
beautiful  they  were !  The  second  one  especially  with  the 
lightning !  I  recall  the  colour  of  the  trees  lighted  by  the 
lamps,  and  the  swinging  of  the  springs  :  we  were  alone,  happy. 
I  gazed  at  your  head  in  the  night,  I  saw  it  in  spite  of  the  dai'k- 
ness,  your  eyes  lighted  up  your  whole  face.  .  .  . 

'  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  writing  badly,  you  will  read  all  this 
coldly ;  I  don't  say  anything  that  I  want  to  say.  My  phrases 
tread  on  one  another  like  sighs  :  to  understand  them  you  must 
fill  up  what  separates  one  from  another ;  you  will  do  that,  will 
you  not .''  My  mother  was  waiting  for  me  at  the  station  ;  she 
wept  on  seeing  me  arrive  ;  you  wept  on  seeing  me  depart. 
Our  fate  is  then  such  that  we  cannot  move  ourselves  from  one 
place  to  another  without  costing  tears  at  either  side.  That  is 
sombrely  grotesque.  I  find  here  again  the  green  lawns,  the 
big  trees,  and  the  water  flowing,  as  when  I  went  away.  My 
books  are  open  in  the  same  place ;  nothing  has  changed. 
External  nature  shames  us,  she  has  a  calm  humiliating  to  our 
pride.  Never  mind,  do  not  let  us  think  of  the  future,  nor  of 
ourselves,  nor  of  anything !  To  think  is  the  way  to  suffer. 
Let  us  allow  our  hearts  to  go  before  the  wind,  as  long  as  it  will 
fill  the  sail !  Let  it  carry  us,  as  it  pleases,  and  as  for  the  cliffs 
— on  my  word — so  much  the  worse  !  We  shall  see.  Farewell. 
Farewell.' 

'August  7,  1846. 

'  Since  we  have  told  one  another  that  we  love,  you  ask  me 
whence  comes  my  reservation,  that  I  do  not  add,  "  for  ever." 


48  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Why  ?  The  reason  is  that  I  divine  the  future ;  that  the 
antithesis  continually  rises  before  my  eyes.  I  have  never  seen 
a  child  without  thinking  that  he  will  become  an  old  man,  nor 
a  cradle  without  thinking  of  a  grave.  The  contemplation  of  a 
woman  makes  me  dream  of  her  skeleton.  That  is  why  merry 
sights  make  me  sad,  and  mournful  spectacles  affect  me  little. 
I  weep  too  much  inwardly  to  shed  tears  outwardly;  a  story 
read  moves  me  more  than  a  real  misfortune.  When  I  had  a 
family,  I  often  wished  not  to  have  one,  to  be  freer,  to  go  and 
live  in  China,  or  with  savages.  Now  that  I  have  none,  I  miss 
it,  and  cling  on  to  the  walls,  where  its  shadow  still  remains. 
Other  men  would  be  proud  of  the  love  which  you  lavish  upon 
me,  their  vanity  would  drink  there  at  its  ease,  and  their  male 
self-esteem  would  be  flattered  by  it  to  its  most  intimate  folds ; 
but  it  only  makes  my  heart  faint  with  sadness,  when  the 
moments  of  excitement  are  passed;  fori  say  to  myself:  '^  she 
loves  me,  and  I  who  love  her  too,  do  not  love  her  enough.  If 
she  had  never  known  me,  I  should  have  spcired  her  all  the  tears 
that  she  sheds." 

'  You  think  that  you  will  always  love  me,  child  !  always  ! 
What  presumption  in  a  human  mouth  !  You  have  loved  before 
now,  have  you  not  ?  as  I  have  ;  do  you  remember  that  then  too 
you  said  "^for  ever"  ? 

'  But  I  am  tormenting  you,  vexing  you.  .  .  .  Never  mind,  I 
prefer  to  disturb  your  happiness  now  rather  than  to  exaggei'ate 
it  coldly,  as  they  all  do,  so  that  its  loss  hereafter  may  make  you 
suffer  more.  .  ,  .  Who  knows }  Perhaps  you  will  thank  me 
later  for  having  had  the  courage  not  to  be  more  tender.  Ah  ! 
if  I  had  lived  at  Paris,  if  all  the  days  of  my  life  could  have  been 
passed  with  you !  yes,  I  would  let  myself  go  with  the  stream 
without  crying  for  help.  I  should  have  found  in  you  a  daily 
satisfaction  for  ray  heart  and  head,  that  would  never  have 
wearied  me.  But  separated,  destined  to  see  one  another  but 
rarely,  it  is  frightful,  what  a  perspective  !  and  yet  what  is  to  be 
done?  I  cannot  conceive  how  I  managed  to  leave  you.  That  is 
just  me,  that  is  !  That  is  just  my  pitiful  nature  ;  were  you  not 
to  love  me,  I  should  die  of  it ;  you  do  love  me,  and  I  am  for 
writing  to  you  to  stop.  I  would  have  liked  to  pass  into  your 
life  like  a  fresh  stream,   which  would  have  cooled  the  thirsty 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  49 

banks,  and  not  like  a  ravaging  torrent ;  the  memory  of  me 
should  have  made  your  flesh  quiver,  and  your  heart  smile.  Do 
not  ever  curse  me  !  There — I  shall  have  loved  you  veiy  much 
before  I  cease  to  love  you.  For  my  part — I  shall  always  bless 
you  ;  your  image  will  remain  for  me  suffused  with  poetry  and 
tenderness,  as  was  last  night's  sky  in  the  milky  vapours  of  its 
silvery  mist.  This  month  I  will  come  to  see  you,  I  will  be  with 
you  one  big  whole  day.  I  owe  you  a  frank  explanation  about 
myself  to  reply  to  a  page  of  your  letter,  which  shows  me 
the  illusions  that  you  have  with  regard  to  me.  It  would  be 
cowardly  of  me  to  let  them  last  longer,  and  cowardice  is  a  vice 
which  disgusts  me  under  whatever  aspect  it  appears. 

'  Whatever  they  say,  the  bottom  of  my  nature  is  the  mounte- 
bank. In  my  childhood  and  in  my  youth  I  had  a  mad  love  of 
the  boards.  I  should  perhaps  have  been  a  great  actor  if  Heaven 
had  willed  me  to  be  born  poorer.  And  now  what  I  like  above 
everything  is  form,  provided  that  it  be  beautiful  and  nothing 
more.  Women,  whose  hearts  are  too  ardent  and  minds  too 
narrow,  do  not  understand  this  religion  of  beauty,  this  abstrac- 
tion of  sentiment.  They  must  always  have  a  cause,  an  end.  I, 
for  my  part,  admire  tinsel  as  much  as  gold.  The  poetry  of  the 
tinsel  is  even  superior,  in  that  it  is  sad.  For  me  there  is  nothing 
in  the  world  except  beautiful  verses,  well  turned,  harmonious, 
resonant  phrases,  glorious  sunsets,  moonlight,  coloured  paintings, 
antique  marbles,  and  shapely  heads.  Beyond  that,  nothing.  I 
would  sooner  have  been  Talma  than  Mirabeau,  because  he  lived 
in  a  sphere  of  purer  beauty.  Caged  birds  stir  my  compassion  as 
much  as  enslaved  peoples.  In  all  politics  there  is  only  one 
thing  that  I  understand,  revolt.  Fatalist  as  a  Turk,  I  believe 
that  all  that  we  may  do  for  the  progress  of  humanity,  or  any- 
thing else,  comes  to  absolutely  the  same  thing.  As  for  this 
"  progress,"  my  understanding  is  a  bit  obtuse  for  things  that 
are  not  quite  clear.  All  that  has  to  do  with  that  way  of 
talking  fatigues  me  immeasurably.  I  hate  the  modern  tyranny, 
because  it  seems  to  me  stupid,  feeble,  and  timid  in  itself,  but  I 
have  a  deep  admiration  for  the  ancient  tyranny,  which  I  regard 
as  the  finest  manifestation  of  man.  I  am  before  everything  the 
man  of  fancy,  caprice,  inconsequence.  Some  day  I  shall  live 
far  from  here,  and  more  will  be  heard  of  me.      As  for  what 


50  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ordinarily  touches  men  the  most  nearly  in  the  matter  ol 
physical  love,  I  have  always  separated  it  from  the  other.  I  saw 
you  laugh  at  that  the  other  day  in  relation  to  B.  .  .  .  that  was 
my  own  story.  You  are  certainly  the  only  woman  that  I  have 
loved. 

'  I  loved  one  from  the  age  of  fourteen  to  twenty  without 
telling  her,  without  touching  her ;  and  I  was  nearly  three  years 
after  that  without  being  aware  of  my  sex.  At  one  time  I 
thought  I  should  die,  so  I  thanked  Heaven  for  it.  You  are  the 
only  woman  that  I  have  ventured  to  wish  to  please,  and  perhaps 
the  only  one  that  I  have  pleased.  Thank  you,  thank  you. 
But  will  you  understand  me  to  the  end,  will  you  bear  the 
weight  of  my  weariness,  my  whims,  my  caprices,  my  despairs, 
and  my  violent  reactions .''  You  tell  me,  for  example,  to  write 
to  you  every  day,  and  if  I  do  not  you  will  scold  me.  Well — the 
idea  that  you  expect  a  letter  eveiy  morning  will  prevent  me 
from  writing  it.  Let  me  love  you  after  my  own  fashion,  in  the 
manner  of  my  being,  with  what  you  call  my  originality.  Force 
me  to  nothing,  and  I  will  do  everything.  Understand  me  and 
don't  accuse  me.  If  I  judged  you  to  be  frivolous  and  silly  like 
other  women  I  would  pay  you  with  words,  promises,  oaths. 
What  would  that  cost  me .''  But  I  prefer  to  remain  below, 
rather  than  above  my  heart's  truth. 

'  The  Numidians,  Herodotus  says,  have  a  strange  custom. 
They  burn  the  skin  of  their  heads  with  coal  when  they  are 
quite  small,  so  that  they  may  afterwai-ds  be  less  sensitive  to 
the  action  of  the  sun,  which  is  devouring  in  their  country.  So 
of  all  people  in  the  world  it  is  they  who  are  the  healthiest. 
Think  that  I  have  been  brought  up  in  Numidia.  Would  it  not 
have  been  poor  sport  to  have  said  to  them,  "  You  feel  nothing, 
the  sun  itself  does  not  warm  you  ! "  Oh,  do  not  be  afraid  ! 
there  may  be  a  hard  skin  somewhere  on  my  heart,  but  it  is 
none  the  less  good.' 

Though  these  letters  are  given  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  written,  all  are  not  given  ;  only  those  in  which  a  new 
string  seems  to  be  touched,  and  which  therefore  throw  addi- 
tional light  on  Flauberfs  character ;  or  those  which  are  in 
themselves  intrinsically  beautiful. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  51 

'August  12,  1846. 

'  You  would  inspire  a  dead  man  with  love.  How  then  do  you 
wish  me  not  to  love  you  ?  You  have  a  power  of  attraction  to 
make  the  stones  stand  up  at  your  voice.  Your  letters  move  me 
to  my  inmost  parts.  Fear  not  then,  that  I  shall  forget  you. 
You  know  well  that  natures  like  youi's  are  not  left,  those 
emotional,  moving,  deep  natures.  I  am  angry  with  myself, 
I  could  beat  myself  for  having  caused  you  pain.  Forget  every- 
thing that  I  said  in  Sunday's  letter.  I  had  addressed  myself  to 
your  male  intelligence,  I  believed  that  you  would  know  how  to 
abstract  yourself  from  yourself,  and  understand  me  in  your 
heart.  You  have  seen  too  many  things,  where  there  was  not  so 
much ;  you  have  exaggerated  all  that  I  said  to  you.  Perhaps 
you  beheved  that  I  was  posing,  that  I  was  giving  myself  out 
for  the  Anthony  of  a  small  theati'e.  You  treat  me  as  a 
Voltaii-ian,  and  materialist.  God  knows,  however,  if  I  am. 
You  also  speak  to  me  of  my  exclusive  tastes  in  literature,  which 
ought  to  have  made  you  divine  what  I  am  in  love,  I  am 
searching  in  vain  for  what  all  that  means.  I  don't  understand 
a  word  of  it.  On  the  contrary  I  admire  eveiything  in  my 
heart's  good  faith ;  and  if  I  am  worth  anything  at  all,  it  is  in 
virtue  of  this  pantheistic  faculty,  and  also  of  that  harshness 
which  has  wounded  you.  Come,  don't  let  us  talk  any  more  of 
it.  I  was  wrong,  I  was  a  fool,  I  did  with  you  what  I  have 
done  at  other  times  with  my  best  loved  ones,  I  showed  them 
the  bottom  of  my  bag,  and  the  bitter  dust  which  flew  out  of  it, 
made  them  choke.  How  many  times  without  meaning  it  have 
I  not  made  iny  father  weep !  He  so  intelligent,  so  acute  ! 
But  he  understood  nothing  of  my  way  of  speech.  He  like 
you,  like  the  othei-s.  I  have  the  infirmity  of  having  been  born 
with  a  special  language  to  which  I  alone  have  the  key.  I  am 
not  vmhappy  at  all,  I  am  not  surfeited  with  anything,  everybody 
thinks  me  of  a  very  gay  character,  and  never  in  my  life  do  I 
complain.  At  the  bottom  I  do  not  think  myself  much  to  be 
pitied,  for  I  envy  nothing,  and  I  want  nothing.  There — I  will 
not  torment  you  any  more,  I  will  touch  you  gently,  like  a  child 
that  one  is  afraid  of  wounding,  I  will  draw  back  into  myself 
the  prickles  which  come  out  of  me.  With  just  a  little  good- 
will even  the  porcupine  does  not  always  hurt.     You  say  that  I 


52  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

analj^se  too  much,  I  think  that  I  do  not  know  myself  enough  ; 
every  day  I  discover  something  new  in  me.  1  travel  in  myself 
as  in  an  unknown  country,  although  I  have  traversed  it  a 
hundred  times.  You  are  not  grateful  to  me  for  my  frankness 
(women  want  to  be  deceived,  they  force  you  to  it,  and  if  you 
resist,  they  blame  you).  You  tell  me  that  I  did  not  show 
myself  like  that  at  first :  on  the  contrary,  recall  your  recollec- 
tions. I  began  by  showing  you  my  wounds.  Recall  all  that  I 
said  to  you  at  our  first  dinner ;  why  you  cried  out  youi-self : 
"  So  you  excuse  everything  !  There  is  no  longer  either  good  or 
evil  for  you."  No,  I  have  never  lied  to  you,  I  loved  you 
instinctively,  and  I  did  not  deliberately  make  up  my  mind  to  try 
and  please  you.  That  all  happened  because  it  had  to  happen. 
Laugh  at  my  fatalism,  add  that  I  am  something  late  in  being  a 
Turk,  Fatalism  is  the  Providence  of  evil,  it  is  the  Providence 
that  we  see,  I  believe. 

'  The  tears  that  I  find  on  your  letters,  those  tears  caused  by 
me,  I  would  like  to  buy  them  back  again  by  so  many  drops  of 
blood.  I  am  furious  with  myself,  it  increases  my  disgust  for 
myself.  Were  it  not  for  the  idea  that  I  please  you  I  should 
hold  myself  in  hori'or.  For  the  rest,  it  is  always  so  ;  we  make 
those  whom  we  love  suffer,  or  they  make  us  suffer.  How  is  it 
that  you  reproach  me  with  this  phrase  :  "  I  would  wish  never  to 
have  known  you  ! "  I  know  of  nothing  more  tender.  Would 
you  like  me  to  supply  the  parallel  to  that  ?  It  is  the  phrase 
that  I  uttered  on  the  eve  of  my  sister's  death,  uttered  like  a  cry, 
and  which  revolted  everybody.  There  was  a  talk  of  my  mother. 
"  If  she  could  only  die  ! "  As  it  appears,  that  sort  of  thing  is 
not  fashionable,  and  seems  either  odd  or  cruel ;  what  the  devil 
is  one  to  say  when  one's  heart  is  full  to  bursting  } 

'  Ask  yourself  whether  there  are  many  men  who  would  have 
written  you  that  letter  which  hurt  you  so  much.  Few,  I  think, 
would  have  adopted  that  style,  that  com})lete  self-abnegation. 
Please  tear  up  that  lettei*,  my  love,  don't  think  any  more  of  it, 
or  read  it  over  again  from  time  to  time,  when  you  feel  yourself 
strong.  Come — laugh  !  To-day  I  am  merry,  I  don't  know  why, 
the  sweetness  of  your  letters  of  this  morning  passes  into  my 
blood.  But  don't  spin  me  any  more  commonplaces  such  as  this: 
that  it  is  money  that  has  prevented  me  from  being  happy  ;  that 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  53 

if  I  had  worked  I  should  have  been  better  off ;  as  if  to  be  an 
apothecaiy's  apprentice,  baker,  or  wine-merchant  were  enough 
to  prevent  one  being  bored  in  this  world  !  That  has  all  been 
said  to  me  too  often  by  a  crowd  of  commonplace  people  for  me 
to  wish  to  hear  it  in  your  mouth,  it  spoils  it ;  your  mouth  was 
not  made  for  that.  But  I  thank  you  for  approving  of  my 
literary  silence.  If  I  have  anything  new  to  say,  when  the  time 
comes  it  will  be  said  of  itself.  Oh  !  how  I  should  like  to  write 
great  works  to  please  you,  how  I  should  like  to  see  you  quiver 
at  my  style,  I  who  have  no  desire  for  fame  (and  more  sincerely 
than  the  fox  in  the  fable)  ;  I  would  like  to  have  it  for  you,  to 
throw  it  to  you  like  a  bouquet,  that  it  might  be  a  caress  the 
more,  and  a  soft  bed  in  which  your  mind  might  spread  itself 
when  it  thought  of  me.  You  say  I  am  handsome  ;  I  would 
like  to  be  handsome,  to  have  black  curls  Mling  over  my  ivory 
shoulders  like  the  Greek  youths  ;  I  would  like  to  be  strong, 
pure  ;  but  I  look  at  myself  in  the  glass,  and  think  that  you  love 
me,  and  discover  myself  to  be  revoltingly  commonplace. 

'  I  have  hard  hands,  bowed  knees,  and  a  narrow  chest.  If  I 
had  only  had  a  voice,  if  I  knew  how  to  sing,  I  would  modulate 
those  long  aspii-ations,  which  now  have  to  pass  away  in  sighs  ! 
If  you  had  known  me  ten  years  ago,  I  was  fresh,  perfumed, 
breathing  life  and  love ;  but  now  I  see  my  maturity  bordering 
on  decay.  >*-  *t 

'  I  regret  all  my  past,  it  seems  to  me  that  I  should  have  kept 
it  in  reserve,  in  an  attitude  of  waiting,  to  give  it  to  you  when 
the  time  came.  But  I  never  suspected  that  any  one  could  love 
me,  it  still  seems  to  me  something  outside  nature — Love  for  me ! 
How  comic  it  is  !  and,  like  a  spendthrift  who  wants  to  ruin 
himself  in  a  day,  I  have  given  all  my  riches,  small  and  great.' 

From  the  next  letter  we  see  that  the  lady  had  begun  to 
send  verses  ;  she  was  by  way  of  being  a  poetess,  and  the 
curious  may  still  discover  her  published  works.  To  the  lover 
these  verses  naturally  appeared  full  of  every  charm.  They 
were  accompanied  by  a  portrait  of  the  lady  herself,  a  proof 
of  an  engraving  which  was  published  in  some  Parisian  book 
of  beauty  ;  and  with  all  Flaubert^s  aversion  to  falsehood  and 


54  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

hypocrisy,  he  found  it  necessary  to  invent  a  half  truth  to 
account  to  his  mother  for  his  possession  of  the  portrait, 
which  the  good  mother  indeed  judged  to  be  pretty,  repre- 
senting a  countenance  animated,  open,  and  good. 
The  letter  concludes  : — 

'  I  read  this  morning  some  verses  from  your  volume  with  a 
friend  who  came  to  see  me.  He  is  a  poor  fellow  who  gives 
lessons  here  to  earn  his  bread,  and  who  is  a  poet,  a  i-eal  poet, 
who  does  splendid,  charming  work,  and  who  will  remain 
unknown  because  he  is  in  want  of  two  things ;  bread  and 
leisure.    Yes,  we  I'ead  you,  we  admired  you.' 

The  poet  in  question  was  Louis  Bouilhet,  who  lived  with 
Flaubert  in  the  closest  friendship  till  his  death  in  1867  ;  the 
nature  of  this  friendship  may  be  felt  through  the  following- 
passage  which  concludes  Flaubert's  preface  to  a  posthumous 
volume  of  his  friend's  poems  : — 

'  And  since  to  everything  a  moral  is  demanded,  here  is  mine : 
Are  there  anywhere  two  young  fellows  who  spend  their  Sundays 
reading  the  poets  together,  telling  one  another  what  they  have 
done,  the  plans  of  the  works  they  would  wish  to  write,  the 
similes  that  have  occurred  to  them,  a  phrase,  a  word  ; — and 
who,  though  despising  all  besides,  conceal  this  passion  with  a 
virgin's  modesty,  I  give  them  this  advice  : — 

'  Go  side  by  side  in  the  woods  declaiming  verses,  mingling 
your  soul  with  the  sap  of  the  trees,  and  the  eternity  of  master- 
pieces, lose  yourselves  in  historic  dreams,  in  consternation  in 
the  presence  of  the  sublime  !  spend  your  youth  in  the  arms  of 
the  Muse !  Her  love  consoles  for  the  loss  of  other  loves,  and 
replaces  them. 

'  At  last,  if  the  incidents  of  life  when  once  perceived,  seem 
to  you  ti'ansposed,  as  if  for  the  purpose  of  an  illusion  to  be 
described,  so  that  all  things,  your  own  existence  included,  shall 
seem  to  you  to  have  no  other  utility,  if  you  are  resolved  to  face 
any  outrage,  ready  for  any  sacrifice,  armed  against  every  trial, 
launch  yourselves,  publish! 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  55 

'  Then,  whatever  may  happen,  you  will  see  the  pitifulness  of 
your  rivals  without  indignation,  and  their  fame  without  envy ; 
for  the  less  favoured  will  console  himself  by  the  success  of  the 
more  fortunate ;  the  one  whose  nerves  are  strong  will  support 
the  comrade  who  loses  heart,  each  will  bring  to  the  common 
stock  his  particular  acquisitions;  and  this  reciprocal  control 
will  prevent  pride,  and  defer  decadence. 

'  Then  when  one  has  died — for  the  life  was  too  beautiful — let 
the  other  preserve  his  memory  as  a  precious  possession  to  make 
him  a  bulwark  against  baseness,  a  resource  in  weakness,  or 
rather  as  a  domestic  oratory,  to  which  he  will  repair  to  murmur 
his  sorrows  and  empty  his  heart.  How  many  times  in  the  night 
will  he,  casting  his  eyes  into  the  darkness  behind  that  lamp, 
which  used  to  shine  on  the  two  heads,  vaguely  seek  for  a 
shadow,  ready  to  ask  it :  "  Is  it  so  .''  What  am  I  to  do  .^  Tell 
me  " — and  if  this  memory  is  the  everlasting  food  of  his  despair, 
it  will  at  least  be  a  companion  in  his  solitude.' 

Louis  Bouilhet  we  have  already  seen  with  Ernest  Chevalier, 
a  school  friend  of  Flaubert.  He  was  born  at  Cany,  a  small 
village  outside  Rouen ;  his  father  had  been  a  military 
surgeon  ;  his  maternal  grandfather,  an  active-minded  man, 
who  corresponded  with  Voltaire,  Turgot,  Condorcet,  lived 
to  be  nearly  a  hundred.  Bouilhet  was  a  year  younger  than 
Flaubert,  and  unlike  Flaubert  carried  off'  all  the  prizes  at 
school,  '  although  the  very  reverse  of  what  is  called  "  a  good 
boy," — the  term  applied  to  mediocre  natures,  and  to  a  modera- 
tion of  character,  which  was  rare  at  that  time."' 

Among  the  little  group  of  lads  before  mentioned,  whose 
exalted  imaginations  led  them  to  strange  excesses,  Bouilhet 
was  the  elegiac  poet,  the  singer  of  ruins  and  moonlights. 
This  phase  was  succeeded  by  a  republican  fervour  ;  in  his 
twentieth  year  he  all  but  joined  a  secret  society.  After 
taking  his  degree  he  had  to  decide  upon  a  profession,  and 
selected  that  of  medicine.  He  became  a  resident  student, 
assistant  house-surgeon,  with  the  elder  Flaubert.     He  had 


56  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

inherited  a  small  income  from  a  godfather  ;  this  he  generously 
handed  over  to  his  mother  and  two  sisters,  and  supported 
himself  by  giving  private  lessons  to  young  persons  who 
experienced  a  difficulty  in  passing  examinations.  As  this 
coaching  work  occupied  the  greater  part  of  his  days,  night 
duty  at  the  infirmary  fell  to  him  more  often  than  to  any 
other  student.  Many  of  his  best  early  verses  were  written 
in  the  wards  of  the  hospital ;  indeed  he  would  write  verses 
anywhere,  and  was  never  without  a  note-book  in  which  the 
inspiration  of  the  moment  could  be  jotted  down.  Like  his 
friend,  he  was  physically  a  fine  man, — elegantly  built,  tall, 
robust,  with  a  flood  of  golden  curls.  In  1846,  on  the  death 
of  Pere  Flaubert  he  definitely  abandoned  medicine,  and  took 
exclusively  to  '  making  bachelors  of  arts."'  After  1848  his 
faith  in  republicanism  and  interest  in  politics  vanished.  It 
was  in  May  1846  that  his  closer  intimacy  with  Flaubert 
began  ;  he  used  to  arrive  at  Croisset  on  Saturday  evening  or 
Sunday,  and  stay  till  Monday  morning.  '  Part  of  the  night 
was  spent  in  reading  over  the  week's  work.  What  hours  of 
expansion !  Endless  cries,  exclamations,  arguments  for  or 
against  the  retention  of  an  epithet,  reciprocal  enthusiasm.'' 
Bouilhet  was  a  superb  Latinist,  and  familiar  with  all  classical 
literature,  Greek  no  less  than  Latin.  Though  extremely 
shy,  blushing  under  a  look,  uncomfortable  in  a  drawing- 
room,  he  understood  no  nonsense  when  a  literary  question 
arose;  he  supported  his  convictions  with  energy  and  wit, 
and  had  a  formidable  power  of  sarcasm. 

At  this  time  Flaubert  was  amusing  himself  with  a  careful 
study  of  the  tragedies  of  Voltaire  and  Marmontel.  Maxime 
Ducamp  asks — to  what  purpose  ?  One  outcome  of  the  study 
was  a  parody, — '  a  tragedy  according  to  the  rules,  with  the 
three  unities,  and  wherein  nothing  would  ever  be  called  by 
its  right  name."'     Flaubert,  Bouilhet,  Ducamp  spent  hours 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  57 

together  over  this  burlesque,  which  was  never  published,  nor 
indeed  finished.  A  few  verses  however  have  been  preserved. 
The  plot  and  subject  came  from  Flaubert,  but  none  of  the 
verses ;  he  never  wrote  a  verse  in  his  life  that  would  scan, 
or  a  couplet  that  would  rhyme. 

The  subject  of  the  tragedy  was  '  Jenner,  or  the  Discovery 
of  Vaccine."'  The  action  took  place  in  the  palace  of  Gonnor, 
prince  of  the  Angles  ;  the  stage  represented  a  colonnade 
ornamented  M'ith  the  spoils  of  the  conquered  Caledonians. 
A  sawbones,  pupil  of  Jenner,  and  jealous  of  his  master, 
played  the  principal  ])art  in  the  piece.  Materialist  and 
atheistic,  fed  on  the  doctrines  of  Holbach,  Helvetius,  and 
Lamettrie,  he  foresees  the  French  Revolution,  and  predicts 
the  accession  of  Louis  Philippe.  The  other  heroes  were 
outlined  on  those  of  Marmonters  tragedies.  The  small-pox, 
personified  as  a  monster,  appears  in  a  dream  to  the  young- 
princess,  the  daughter  of  the  virtuous  Gonnor.  A  sentinel 
is  suddenly  seized  by  the  unknown  malady  ;  which  Jenner, 
'  eldest  son  of  iEsculapius,'  is  to  succeed  in  curing  ;  the 
patient  writhes  with  pain,  for 

*  The  flowers  of  high  iEtna,  the  snows  of  the  Alps 
Contend  for  his  senses. ' 

An  attendant  maiden  offers  him  a  glass  of  sweetened 
water  with  a  little  orang-e-flower : — 

*  This  juice  so  delicious  expressed  from  the  cane 
Which  is  melted  in  water,  and  sent  us  from  Spain, 
Thus  mingled  with  perfumes  hrought  hither  in  ships 
From  the  far  western  islands  may  moisten  your  lips.' 

The  remedy  fails ;  the  sentinel  still  raves ;  they  then 
propose  to  go  and  fetch  him  the  instrument  with  which 
Moliere  pursued  M.  de  Pourceaugnac,  and  which,  in  the  lips 
of  the  young  Caledonian  maid,  becomes  : — 

*  The  tortuous  tube  from  whence  health  gushes  forth.' 


58  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

In  another  place  Jenner^s  official  hat  is  described^as 

'The  majestic  liead-piece 
That  oi'iiament  stately  whose  mother  is  Cireece. ' 

While  a  woman,  whose  face  Avas  so  pitted  with  small-pox 
as  to  resemble  a  skimmer,  is  thus  nobly  delineated : — 

'  I  have  seen  a  maiden  whose  gentle  aspect 
Caused  my  horrified  eyes  on  the  spot  to  detect 
A  resemblance  to  tliat  thousand-pierced  machine, 
Armed  with  which  the  good  matron  may  often  be  seen, 
To  remove  from  the  brim  of  her  vessels  of  clay 
The  foam  of  the  juices  those  vessels  convey.' 

In  such  pleasant  fooling  as  this  Flaubert  and  Bouilhet 
settled  slowly  down  to  their  lifelong  work  ;  the  one  began 
the  first  edition  of  Saint  Anthony,  the  other  a  poem  with  a 
Roman  subject,  Melaenis. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PATH  OF  LOVE  NOT  SMOOTH LETTER  TO  MRS.  TENNAXT 

Meanwhile,  the  correspondence  with  the  Parisian  poetess 
continued  ;  it  had  lasted  little  more  than  a  fortnight,  when 
'  the  cliffs  "*  appeared  on  the  horizon.  The  lady  began  to 
urge  her  admirer  to  come  to  Paris,  to  live  there  permanently 
with  her ;  she  was  not  altogether  satisfied  with  his  absorbing- 
admiration  of  the  beautiful  in  art ;  nor  could  she  understand 
why,  loving  her  so  much,  he  should  still  remain  in  attend- 
ance on  his  mother. 

'  You  are  always  speaking  to  me  of  your  sorrows  ;  I  believe 
in  them^  I  have  seen  the  proof  of  it,  I  feel  it  in  myself,  wliich 
is  better.  But  I  see  another  sorrow,  a  son*ow  which  is  there  by 
my  side,  and  which  never  complains  ; — which  even  smiles,  and 
in  comparison  with  which,  yours,  immense  though  it  may  be, 
will  never  be  more  than  a  rash  compared  to  a  burn,  a  convul- 
sion beside  an  agony.  There  is  the  vice  in  which  I  am  caught. 
The  two  women,  that  I  love  best,  have  passed  a  bit  with  two 
reins  into  my  heart,  by  which  they  hold  me,  pull  me  altei'nately 
by  love  and  pain.' 

A  recommendation  to  read  the  morning  papers  met  with 
no  very  encouraging  response  : — 

'  I  don't  care  about  news  ;  politics  bore  me,  I  loathe  periodi- 
cals ;  the  whole  business  makes  me  dull  or  furious.  You  speak 
to  me  of  an  earthquake  at  Leghorn,  Even  if  I  were  to  open 
my  mouth  over  that  and  emit  the  phrases  of  consecrated  usage 

59 


60  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

under  sucli  circumstances  :  "  It  is  veiy  tiresome  !  "  "  What  a 
frightful  disaster  ! "  "  Is  it  possible  ?  "  "  Oh,  good  God  !  "  will 
that  itestore  life  to  the  dead,  -wealth  to  the  poor  ?  In  all  that 
there  is  a  hidden  meaning  that  escapes  us,  which  we  do  not 
imderstand,  and  doubtless  a  superior  utility,  as  in  the  wind  and 
rain ;  because  our  melon  frames  have  been  broken  by  the  hail, 
must  we  wish  to  suppress  hurricanes  ?  Who  knows  but  what 
the  wind  that  brings  down  a  roof,  opens  up  a  whole  forest? 
Why  should  not  the  volcano  which  destroys  a  town  fertilise  a 
province  ? 

'  I  regret  that  Phidias  (Pradier)  is  not  coming.  He  is  an 
excellent  fellow  and  a  great  artist ;  yes,  a  great  artist,  a  real 
Greek,  and  the  most  ancient  of  all  the  moderns,  a  man  who  does 
not  concern  himself  with  anything,  neither  with  politics,  nor 
socialism,  nor  Fourier,  nor  the  Jesuits,  nor  the  University,  who 
is  there  like  a  good  workman  with  his  sleeves  tucked  up  doing 
liis  business  from  morning  till  evening,  with  the  wish  to  do  it 
well,  and  the  love  of  his  art.  Everything  is  there,  in  the  love 
of  art.  But  I  stop, — that  irritates  you  again  :  you  do  not  like 
to  hear  me  say  that  I  concern  myself  more  about  a  verse  than  a 
man,  and  that  I  am  more  grateful  to  the  poets  than  to  the  saints 
and  heroes.' 

Within  a  month  jealousy  had  declared  itself;  the  object, 
a  model  of  Pradier"'s ;  and  then  there  was  always  the  standing 
jealousy  of  the  lady  of  Trouville.  Under  the  circumstances 
the  following  confidence  was  scarcely  discreet : — 

'  You  make  a  very  true  remark  ;  love  is  a  great  comedy,  and 
life  also,  when  one  does  not  take  a  pai't  in  it ;  only  I  do  not 
admit  that  it  is  laughable.  Nearly  eighteen  months  ago  I 
made  this  experience  in  a  living  subject,  that  is  to  say  that  the 
expei'ience  was  there  ready  made.  I  used  to  visit  a  house  where 
there  was  a  daughter,  charming,  wonderfully  beautiful,  of  a 
beauty  altogether  Christian  and  .almost  Gothic,  if  I  may  say  so  ; 
she  had  a  simple  mind  inclined  to  devotion,  she  wept  and 
laughed  turn  in  and  turn  out,  as  rain  succeeds  sunshine  and 
sunshine  rain  ;  I  moved  this  beautiful  heart  with  my  words  at 
my  pleasure,  the  heart  in  which  there  was  nothing  that  was  not 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  61 

pure.  I  see  her  still  reclining  on  her  rose  pillow  and  looking 
at  me,  as  I  read,  with  her  wide  blue  eyes.  One  day  we  were 
alone,  sitting  on  a  sofa,  she  took  my  hand,  passed  her  fingers 
into  mine  ;  I  let  her  do  it  without  thinking  of  anything  at  all  ; 
for  1  am  very  innocent  at  most  times,  and  she  looked  at  me 
with  a  look  which  still  makes  me  shudder. 

'  Her  mother  came  in  just  then,  she  understood  it  all  and 
smiled.  I  am  sure  that  the  poor  little  thing  had  given  way  to 
a  moment  of  irresistible  tenderness,  one  of  those  swoons  of  the 
soul  in  which  it  seems  that  everything  in  you  melts  and  dissolves 
— a  voluptuous  pain,  which  would  be  full  of  rapture  were  one 
not  I'eady  to  burst  into  sobs  or  melt  into  tears.  You  cannot 
imagine  the  impression  of  tei*ror  that  I  felt ;  I  went  back  home 
quite  upset,  and  reproaching  myself  for  living  ;  I  do  not  know  if 
I  exaggerated  the  thing  to  myself,  but  I,  who  did  not  love  her, 
I  would  have  given  my  life  to  redeem  that  sad  look  of  love  to 
which  mine  did  not  respond.' 

After  this,  one  is  not  surprised  that  the  next  letter  begins 
with  reproaching  a  temporary  lull  of  four  days  in  the 
correspondence.     It  continues  : — 

'  You  would  like  me  to  know  Beranger ;  so  I  should.  His  is 
a  great  nature  which  touches  me.  But  in  speaking  of  his  works 
there  is  one  great  misfortune,  and  that  is  the  class  of  his 
admirers.  There  are  enormous  geniuses  who  have  only  one 
defect,  one  vice,  that  is  of  being  felt  above  all  by  vulgar  minds, 
hearts  open  to  light  poetry.  For  three  years  Beranger  has 
been  solacing  the  loves  of  students,  and  the  sensual  dreams  of 
bagmen.  I  know  that  he  does  not  wi'ite  for  them,  but  these 
are  the  people  who  feel  him  above  all  others;  and  it  is  all 
very  well  talking,  but  the  populai'ity  which  seems  to  exjiand 
his  genius,  vulgarises  it,  because  the  really  beautiful  is  not 
for  the  masses,  above  all  in  France.  .  .  .  For  my  own  special 
consumption  those  that  I  like  the  best,  ai'e  the  geniuses  a  little 
less  agreeable  to  handle,  more  contemptuous  of  the  people, 
more  retired,  more  haughty  in  their  ways  and  tastes ;  or 
perhaps  the  only  man  who  can  replace  them  all — my  old 
friend  Shakespeare,  upon  whom  I  am  going  to  start  again  from 


62  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

one  end  to  the  other,  and  not  to  leave  him  this  time  till  I  have 
his  pages  at  my  fingers'  ends.  When  I  read  Shakespeare^  I 
become  greater,  more  intelligent,  purer.  Arrived  at  the 
summit  of  one  of  his  vi^orks  I  seem  to  be  on  a  high  mountain, 
everything  disappears,  and  everything  appears,  one  ceases  to  be 
a  man,  one  becomes  an  eye,  new  horizons  rise,  the  perspective 
is  prolonged  to  infinity,  one  does  not  think  that  one  has  lived 
thus  in  those  cabins,  that  are  hardly  distinguishable,  that  one 
has  drunk  at  all  those  rivers,  v^^hich  look  smaller  than  brooks, 
in  a  word  that  one  has  moved  in  that  ant-hill  and  made  part  of 
it.  I  once  wrote  in  a  moment  of  happy  pride,  which  I  should 
be  veiy  glad  to  recover  again,  a  phrase  that  you  will  under- 
stand. It  was  of  the  joy  caused  by  reading  great  poets.  It 
seemed  to  me  at  times  that  the  enthusiasm  they  caused  me 
made  me  their  equal,  and  lifted  me  to  their  level !  Come,  you 
are  still  vexed  about  what  I  said  to  you  on  the  subject  of  the 
St.  Sylvestre.  I  said  that  just  simply  to  divert  you.  I  have 
very  little  perspicacity  in  relation  to  you,  as  it  appears.  My 
science  collapses  before  women,  it  is  true  that  they  are  a 
chapter  in  which  the  next  line  always  proves  to  you,  that  you 
understood  nothing  whatever  of  the  preceding  one.' 

Through  a  cousin,  the  adored  one  discovered  the  place  of 
residence  of  the  Trouville  lady,  somewhere  in  America,  and 
Flaubert  proposed  to  make  use  of  this  channel  to  transmit  a 
letter  to  the  ancient  object  of  his  affections,  which  was  first 
to  be  read  by  the  present  divinity.  In  the  letter  in  which 
this  proposal  was  made,  the  following  sentence  occurs : — 

'No,  I  would  like  to  make  of  you  something  quite  apart, 
neither  friend  nor  mistress,  that  is  too  restricted,  too  exclusive, 
one  does  not  love  one's  friend  enough,  with  one's  mistress  one  is 
too  silly.  It  is  the  middle  term  that  I  seek,  the  essence  of  these 
two  mingled  sentiments,' 

In  spite  of  this  flattering  statement  the  suggestion  proved 
not  altogether  acceptable,  and  the  reply  to  it  elicited  the 
following  response  : — 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  63 

'  Wednesday,  9  p.m.     October  1,  1846. 

'"Frankly,  speak  to  me  frankly."  That  is  your  expression; 
and  at  the  same  time  you  say  you  want  me  to  spare  you,  you 
accuse  me  of  being  brutal,  and  you  do  everything  you  can  to 
make  me  more  so.  For  a  man  of  common  sense  it  is  at  once  a 
strange  and  curious  thing  the  art  that  women  exert  to  force  you 
to  deceive  them,  they  make  you  hypocritical  in  spite  of  yourself, 
and  then  they  accuse  you  of  having  told  lies,  of  having  betrayed 
them.  Ah  well !  no,  my  poor  darling,  I  will  not  be  more 
explicit  than  I  have  been,  because  it  seems  to  me  that  I  cannot 
be.  I  have  always  told  you  all  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the 
truth. 

'  If  I  cannot  come  to  Paris  as  you  wish,  the  reason  is  that 
I  must  stay  here.  My  mother  needs  me,  the  least  absence 
makes  her  uneasy,  her  grief  imposes  a  thousand  unimaginable 
tyrannies  upon  me ;  what  would  be  nothing  for  others  is  for 
me  much.  I  cannot  send  people  marching  who  entreat  me  with 
sad  faces  and  tears  in  their  eyes.  I  am  as  feeble  as  a  child, 
and  I  give  way  because  I  do  not  like  reproaches,  entreaties, 
sighs. 

'  Last  year,  for  example,  I  went  sailing  in  a  boat  every  day,  I 
ran  no  risk  in  it,  because,  apart  from  my  good  seamanship,  I  am 
an  unusually  strong  swimmer ;  well,  this  year  she  took  it  into 
her  head  to  be  anxious ;  she  did  not  ask  me  not  to  betake 
myself  any  more  to  this  exercise,  which  is  for  me,  especially  at 
the  time  of  high  tides  as  now,  full  of  charm :  I  cut  the  wave 
which  wets  me  as  it  falls  back  on  the  flanks  of  my  bark,  I  let 
go  my  sail,  which  shivers  and  flaps  with  joyous  movement,  I 
am  alone,  without  speaking,  without  thinking,  given  up  to 
the  furies  of  nature,  and  rejoicing  in  feeling  myself  at  her 
mercy ;  well,  she  said  nothing  to  me  on  the  subject,  but  none 
the  less  I  have  put  the  whole  apparatus  away  in  the  attic,  and 
there  is  not  a  day  on  which  I  do  not  wish  to  take  it  out  again  ; 
I  do  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  to  avoid  certain  allusions,  certain 
looks,  that  is  all.  In  the  same  way  for  ten  years  I  concealed 
the  fact  of  my  writing,  in  order  to  spare  myself  a  possible 
raillery. 

'  I  should  want  an  excuse  to  go  to  Paris — what  excuse  ?  On 
the  following  journey  another,  and  so  on.     Having  nothing  but 


64  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

myself  that  attaches  her  to  life  my  mother  is  all  day  after 
worrying  her  head  about  the  possible  misfortmies  and  accidents 
that  may  happen  to  me.  When  I  want  anything,  I  do  not  ring, 
because  if  that  happens,  I  hear  her  running  all  breathless  up 
the  stairs  to  come  and  see  if  I  am  not  ill ;  and  so  I  am  obliged 
to  go  down  myself,  and  look  for  wood,  when  mine  is  out,  for 
my  tobacco  when  I  want  to  smoke,  my  candles,  when  my  own 
are  used  up.  Yet  again,  my  poor  soul,  I  assure  you,  that  if  I 
could,  not  go  to  Paris,  but  live  there  with  j^ou,  or  at  any  rate 
near  you,  I  would  do  so.     But  ,   .  .  alas  !  .   .  .  alas  ! 

'  I  remember  that  about  ten  years  ago  one  holidays  we  were 
at  Havre,  my  fether  heard  there,  that  a  woman  whom  he  had 
known  in  his  youth,  when  seventeen  years  old,  was  living  there 
with  her  son,  then  an  actor  in  the  theatre  at  that  town  ;  he 
took  it  into  his  head  to  go  and  see  her  again.  This  woman,  a 
celebrated  beauty  in  her  native  place,  had  formerly  been  his 
mistress  ;  he  did  not  do  as  many  middle  class  people  would 
have  done,  he  did  not  conceal  the  fact,  he  was  too  lofty  for 
that ;  he  went  then  to  pay  her  a  visit,  my  mother  and  we 
three  remained  on  foot  in  the  street  waiting  for  him — the 
visit  lasted  nearly  an  hour.  Do  you  think  that  my  mother  was 
jealous,  or  that  she  felt  the  smallest  annoyance  on  the  subject } 
Not  a  bit  of  it,  and  yet  she  loved  him,  loved  him  as  much 
as  a  woman  ever  has  been  able  to  love  a  man,  and  that,  not 
only  when  they  were  young,  but  to  the  very  last  day  after  a 
union  of  thirty-five  years.  Why  do  you  wound  yourself  in 
anticipation  about  a  word  of  remembrance  that  I  intend  to 
send  to  Madame  X  ?  I  do  more  than  my  father,  for  I  make 
you  a  third  in  our  conversation, — which  takes  place  across 
the  Atlantic. 

'  Yes,  I  wish  you  to  read  my  letter,  if  I  write  one,  if  you  wish 
it,  if  you  understand  beforehand  the  sentiment  which  leads  me 
to  do  so.  You  think  that  in  this  there  is  some  want  of  delicacy 
towards  you,  I  should  have  thought  the  contraiy — I  should 
have  seen  in  it  a  more  than  ordinary  mark  of  confidence.  I 
give  you  my  whole  past,  and  that  irritates  you  ;  I  say  to  you  : 
'  here,  see — that  is  what  I  did  love,  and  it  is  you  that  I  do 
love  ! '  That  hurts  you  !  On  my  honour  it  is  enough  to  make 
a  man  go  out  of  his  mind.' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTA\^  FLAUBERT  65 

After  this,  the  letter  ends  amicably  ^nth  sentimental 
allusions  to  some  hours  spent  together  at  ]\Iantes, 

About  this  time  the  follo-n-ing  letter  was  written  to  Miss 
Grertrude  Collier  (aftenvards  Mrs.  Tennant) : — 

'  Shall  I  never  see  you  again  ?  Is  your  departure  really 
determined  on  ?  But  why  do  you  not  go  by  way  of  Rouen  ? 
That  road  would  take  you  the  quickest,  and  I  should  be  able 
to  say  Good-bye  to  you.  If  you  are  dismal  at  leaving  Paris, 
so  am  I  at  yom-  departure.  I  shall  never  be  able  to  see 
your  poor  house  again  ^vithout  a  heartache.  There  are  now 
a  crowd  of  places  on  the  earth,  where  my  soul  bleeds  when 
I  pass.  All  is  leaving  me ;  my  relations  die,  my  friends  go 
away.  Nothing  remains  to  me  of  all  that  but  the  memorj' ; 
yours  will  always  remain  dear  to  me.  I  shall  never  forget 
those  long  afternoons  that  I  used  to  go  and  spend  at  Rond- 
Point,  our  happy  readings,  our  endless  talks.  When  I  was 
living  in  that  dismal  Rue  de  I'Est,  I  used  to  promise  myself 
my  days  of  visiting  you  like  holidays ;  at  that  time  those  were 
my  best  moments,  and  in  my  last  stay  in  Paris  with  what 
pleasure  did  I  not  carry  myself  back  to  that  pleasant  vanished 
past !  We  laughed  again  there  then,  do  you  remember  it  ? 
For  me,  that  journey  made  between  the  deaths  of  my  father 
and  sister,  has  left  in  my  thoughts  as  it  were,  the  memory  of 
an  hour  of  rest  between  two  hiuxicanes,  and  then,  how  should 
I  not  think  of  you  all  with  tenderness,  you  are  mixed  in  so 
many  things  of  my  inner  life .''  I  knew  you  at  Trou\dl]e  in  the 
times  when  we  were  all  there.  I  have  kept  for  myself  the 
striped  red  and  blue  wrapper  that  Henrietta  used  to  wear,  and 
which  she  gave  Caroline. 

'  VTho  knows  when  I  shall  see  you  again,  and  if  I  ever  shall 
see  you  again?  I  misti-ust  all  happiness  more  than  ever,  I 
have  dark  misgivings  about  the  future,  and  besides,  if  I  see  you 
all  again,  doubtless  all  will  be  changed.  I  do  not  say  that  you 
will  forget  me :  I  do  really  believe  in  your  friendship,  but  I 
have  a  distrust  of  time,  see  you.''  of  time,  which  rots  everything, 
like  the  rain,  which  gnaws  the  hardest  marbles,  and  the  most 
soUd  feelings,  .  .  .  You  will  be  married  perhaps,  so  many  things 
will   have  arisen !     May  heaven  make  you  happy,   Gertnide ! 

E 


66  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

That  is  my  deepest  prayer.  If  I  did  not  think  that  you  esteem 
me  too  much  to  ask  of  me  the  conventional  phrases  on  this 
occasion,  I  would  send  you  a  crowd  of  common-places  which 
I  spare  you,  but  you  know  what  I  am  to  you.  .  .  .  Farewell — 
Farewell — "entirely  yours."     (This  is  not  a  formula.)' 

Apparently  our  Parisian  friend  kept  no  letters  that  reached 
her  between  the  20th  of  October  and  the  22nd  of  December 
1846,  for  the  next  one  is  of  the  latter  date,  and  written  at 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  ;  in  spite  of  Maxime  Ducamp''s 
assertion  that  Flaubert  dated  his  letters,  if  at  all,  only  by 
the  day  of  the  week — a  statement  which,  by  the  way,  is 
partially  true. 

'  To  deny  the  existence  of  gloomy  sentiments,  because  they 
are  gloomy  is  to  deny  the  sun  so  long  as  it  is  not  mid-day ; 
truth  resides  as  much  in  the  half-tones  as  in  the  violent 
contrasts.  I  had  in  my  youth  a  real  friend,  who  was  devoted 
to  me,  who  would  have  given  his  life  and  his  money  for  me,  but 
he  would  not  have  got  up  half  an  hour  earlier,  he  would  not 
have  accelerated  any  one  of  his  movements  to  please  me.  When 
we  observe  life  with  a  little  attention  we  see  the  cedars  less  tall 
and  the  reeds  taller. 

'  Still,  I  do  not  like  the  habit  that  certain  people  have 
adopted,  of  bringing  down  the  great  enthusiasms  and  diminish- 
ing the  exceptionally  sublime.  Accordingly,  de  Vigny's  book. 
Military  Servitude  and  Greatness  shocked  me  a  little  at  first, 
because  I  saw  in  it  a  systematic  depreciation  of  blind  devotion 
(of  the  adoration  of  the  Emperor,  for  instance)  of  man's 
fanaticism  for  a  man,  to  the  benefit  of  the  dry  abstract  idea  of 
duty,  an  idea  which  I  have  never  been  able  to  grasp,  and  which 
does  not  seem  to  me  inherent  in  human  entrails.  It  is  the 
adoration  of  the  Emperor  that  is  beautiful  in  the  Empire,  a  love 
exclusive,  absurd,  sublime,  thoroughly  human ;  that  is  why  I 
fail  to  understand  what  is  the  meaning  for  us  to-day  of  the 
Fatherland.  I  clearly  grasp  what  it  was  for  the  Greek  who 
had  only  his  town,  for  the  Roman  who  had  only  Rome,  for  the 
savage  that  one  hunts  down  in  the  forest,  for  the  Arab  whom 
one  chases  to  his  tent.     But  as  for  us,  do  we  not  at  bottom  feel 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  67 

ourselves  as  much  Chinese  or  EngHsh  as  Fi-ench  ?  Do  not  all 
our  dreams  go  abroad  ?  As  children  we  wish  to  live  in  the 
country  of  parrots  and  preserved  dates,  we  grow  up  with  Byron 
or  Virgil,  we  covet  the  East  on  our  rainy  days,  or  perhaps  we 
wish  to  go  and  make  our  fortune  in  the  Indies,  or  exploit  sugar- 
cane in  America.  The  earth  is  our  Fatherland,  the  Universe, 
the  stars,  the  air,  thought  itself,  that  is  to  say,  the  infinite  in 
our  breasts ;  but  the  quarrels  of  people  with  people,  of  canton 
with  district,  of  man  with  man,  interest  me  little,  and  only 
amuse  me  when  they  make  great  pictures  with  red  back- 
grounds.' 

Young  people  who  believe  in  inspiration,  in  long  spells  of 
work  '  when  the  fit  takes  them,"  in  burning  the  midnight  oil, 
and  the  candle  at  both  ends,  would  do  well  to  ponder  on  the 
following  piece  of  advice  addressed  to  the  same  person  as  the 
last  letter. 

'  You  have  been  ill !  Do  not  give  way  to  any  more  of  those 
excesses  in  the  matter  of  work,  which  exhaust,  and  by  reason  of 
that  fatigue  which  they  entail,  make  you  lose  more  time  in  the 
end  than  you  have  gained  ;  it  is  not  the  big  dinners  and  great 
ox'gies  that  nourish,  but  a  regular,  systematic  diet, 

'  Work  patiently  every  day  an  equal  number  of  hours,  adopt 
the  habit  of  a  studious  and  calm  life,  in  the  first  place  you  will 
find  a  great  charm  in  it,  and  in  the  second  you  will  gain  strength. 
I  too,  have  had  the  mania  for  spending  nights  without  sleep, 
which  leads  to  nothing  but  exhaustion. 

'  You  should  iToistrust  everything  which  resembles  inspiration, 
for  that  is  often  nothing  more  than  a  deliberate  determination 
and  forced  excitement,  voluntarily  caused,  and  which  did  not 
come  of  itself ;  besides  we  do  not  live  in  inspiration;  Pegasus 
walks  more  often  than  he  gallops,  genius  consists  in  showing 
how  to  make  hiin  take  the  pace  we  require,  but  for  that 
pui-pose,  we  must  not  force  his  stride,  as  they  say  in  the  riding 
schools,  we  must  read  much,  think  much,  always  be  concerned 
with  style,  and  write  as  little  as  possible,  simply  to  calm  the 
irritation  of  the  idea,  which  must  needs  take  a  form,  and  which 
turns  and  turns  in  us,  till  we  have  found  it  an  exact,  precise 


68  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

form ;  observe  that  we  arrive  at  producing  beautiful  things  by 
dint  of  patience,  and  protracted  effort ;  control  the  violent 
workings  of  your  mind,  which  has  already  made  you  suffer  so 
much  ;  fever  destroys  the  intellect,  anger  has  no  overpowering 
force,  it  is  a  Colossus  whose  knees  totter,  and  which  wounds 
itself  more  than  others.' 


CHAPTER   VII 


TOUR    IN    BRTTTAXy STYLK 


The  correspondence  with  Ernest  Chevalier,  still  in  Corsica, 
was  not  dropped.  Maxime  Ducamp  had  succeeded,  early  in 
1847,  in  getting  Madame  Flaubert  to  consent  to  an  expedition 
into  Brittany,  which  was  to  begin  on  the  1st  of  May  and 
last  three  months  ;  she  had  seen  the  necessity  of  giving 
Gustave  some  complete  change  ;  and  he  wrote  to  inform  his 
old  friend  of  the  fact.     The  letter  concludes  : — 

*  There  is  nothing  new  here.  Everything  goes  on  in  the  old 
lines.  My  mother  always  sad.  The  child  walks,  lives  and  cries. 
My  lord  Alfred  is  at  Neuville,  not  doing  much,  and  still  the 
same  being  that  you  knew,  and  the  citizen  of  Rouen  is  always 
something  gigantically  overwhelming  and  pyramidally  inane. 
For  the  rest,  I  hardly  ever  see  any  of  them,  but  it  is  none  the 
less  humiliating  to  reflect  that  one  breathes  the  same  air.' 

The  Breton  expedition  did  get  accomplished.  Maxime 
Ducamp  has  given  an  account  of  it  in  his  Souvenirs 
Litteraires,  and  the  two  friends  wrote  a  description  of  it  in 
alternate  chapters.  The  portions  written  by  Flaubert  have 
been  published  since  his  death ;  those  that  proceed  from  the 
hand  of  Ducamp  are  for  the  present  in  a  state  of  prudent 
suppression  ;  the  complete  copy  of  the  work  has  probably 
since  his  death  been  deposited  in  some  public  library, 
whose  identity  is  for  the  present  veiled  from  us.     '  Once  we 


70  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

had  the  idea  of  publishing  it  under  the  title  chosen  by 
Flaubert,  Par  les  Champs  et  par  les  Grcves.  We  recoiled 
before  the  necessity  of  corrections.  Under  pretext  of  being 
humorous,  and  that  nothing  should  be  softened  down,  we 
had  softened  so  little,  that  we  had  softened  nothing.  We 
had  emptied  our  bag  of  nonsense,  which  was  fully  furnished. 
The  book  is  aggressive,  touches  on  everything,  proceeds  by 
digressions,  speaks  of  the  right  of  domiciliary  visits  in  con- 
nection with  Notre  Dame  d'Auray,  of  the  Chamber  of  Peers 
in  talking  of  the  battle  of  the  Thirty,  attacks  men  and 
books,  reduces  the  human  ideal  to  a  literary  ideal,  mixes 
lyrical  exaltation  with  satire,  if  not  invective,  and  was  made 
to  remain  what  it  is  :  a  manuscript  in  two  copies. '' 

Shade  of  Flaubert  !  '  Reduces  the  human  ideal  to  a 
literary  ideal  ! ' 

It  seems  that  the  indiscretions  of  this  volume  must  rest 
chiefly  with  Maxime  Ducamp,  for  there  is  nothing  so  very 
terrible  in  the  published  work  of  Flaubert. 

The  friends  travelled  in  the  only  way  in  which  travelling 
is  really  delightful  :  knapsack  on  back,  independent  of 
hotels,  and  public  conveyances  of  all  sorts.  Brittany  was 
then  more  foreign  to  France  than  even  Cardiganshire  to 
England ;  passports  had  to  be  examined  ;  and  the  misgivings 
of  Custom-house  officials  to  be  encountered.  Mere  travellers 
were  naturally  objects  of  suspicion.  'A  custom-house  officer 
submitted  us  to  a  formal  inquiry  and  searched  our  knap- 
sacks. He  was  a  little  put  out  of  countenance  :  with  a 
coaxing  air  he  said  to  us  under  his  breath  :  "  All  the  same, 
tell  us  who  you  are."  Flaubert  whispered  to  him  :  "  A 
secret  commission."  We  were  going  down  towards  Morbihan, 
when  the  Custom-house  officer  caught  us  up  out  of  breath. 
"  Tell  the  King  not  to  come  here,"  said  he  ;  "  the  country  is 
not  safe,  there  are  still  chouans.'''' ' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  71 

Flaubert  was  not  always  a  comfortable  fellow  traveller. 
'  Between  Ploermel  and  Josselin,  at  the  Halfway  Oak, 
Flaubert  suddenly  cried,  "  Beaumanoir  drink  thy  blood  ! " 
Then  rememberino;  the  lord  of  Tintemar  and  the  "  childe  " 
Bembro,  he  tried  to  deliver  a  blow  with  his  stick  on  my 
knapsack,  which  I  received  on  the  arm.  I  begged  him  to 
hit  less  hard,  and  he  replied :  "  You  are  only  middle-class 
after  all,  you  don't  understand  the  fight  of  the  Thirty  ;  I 
think  it  prodigious."  Near  Mont  St.  Michel,  on  the  islet  of 
Tombelaine,  where  Montgomery  fortified  himself,  he  wanted 
to  represent  the  tournament  of  the  twenty-ninth  of  June 
1559 ;  as  the  part  of  Henry  the  Second  would  have  been 
reserved  for  me,  I  refused.  Flaubert  said  to  me  :  "  Ah  ! — 
one  can  easily  see  that  you  do  not  care  about  history  ! " 
Were  we  mad  ?     It  is  quite  possible.'' 

But  these  sufferings  were  small  compared  with  those 
inflicted  upon  poor  Ducamp  by  the  'young  phenomenon.'' 
At  a  fair  at  Guerand  the  travellers  came  upon  a  man  who 
was  showing  a  monstrosity — or  a  pair  of  monstrosities — for 
authorities  differ  on  this  point.  According  to  Ducamp,  the 
*  young  phenomenon  ''  was  a  sheep  with  five  legs  and  a  stiff 
tail ;  according  to  Flaubert  there  Avere  two, — a  cow  and  a 
sheep,  'wearing  one  arm,  four  shoulders'"  as  the  showman 
stated.  Flaubert  fell  in  love  with  the  '  young  phenomenon''; 
made  much  of  the  showman ;  would  have  him  to  dine,  when 
he  got  abominably  drunk  ;  encouraged  him  to  write  to  King- 
Louis  Philippe ;  declared  that  he  would  make  his  fortune. 
For  days  the  joke  lasted.  He  could  talk  of  nothing  but  the 
'  young  phenomenon ' ;  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  the  road 
and  exhibit  poor  Ducamp,  in  the  style  of  the  showman,  to 
the  trees  and  hedges  as  the  '  young  phenomenon."'  At  Brest 
he  encountered  the  '  young  phenomenon ''  again,  who  had 
united  his,  or  their,  forces  with  a  dancing  bear,  some  per- 


72  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

forming  dogs,  a  donkey — whose  business  it  was  to  be  baited — 
and  a  pack  of  fighting  mongrels.  Again  the  hospitaHties  of 
Flaubert  proved  too  much  for  the  sobriety  of  the  showman. 

A  year  later,  Maxime  Ducamp  was  lying  ill  at  Paris, 
having  been  wounded  in  the  tumults  of  '48  ;  he  was  one  day 
disturbed  by  hearing  a  strange  confusion  of  sounds  on  his  stair- 
case,— pushing,  struggling,  bleating,  suppressed  explosions. 
Suddenly  the  door  flew  open,  and  Flaubert  appeared  :  'Gentle- 
men, allow  me  to  introduce  to  you  the  "  young  phenomenon ""; 
it  is  three  years  old,  has  been  approved  by  the  Academy  of 
Medicine,  and  been  honoured  by  the  presence  of  several 
crowned  heads."*  Flaubert  had  discovered  his  old  friend  at 
a  fair  in  some  part  of  Paris,  and  spent  a  hundred  francs  for 
the  pleasure  of  this  private  exhibition.  When  Flaubert  was 
tickled  by  anything  that  amused  him  extremely,  he  let 
nobody  off";  he  repeated  his  joke  with  roars  of  gigantic 
laughter  to  anybody  and  everybody.  If  you  failed  to  perceive 
the  humour  of  the  situation,  he  became  extremely  angry  and 
called  you  '  a  middle-class  person,""  his  most  contemptuous 
term  of  abuse. 

Among  Flaubert"'s  descriptions  and  reflections  in  Par  les 
Champs  et  par  les  Greves^  the  following  are  noteworthy  in 
the  admirer  of  the  '  young  phenomenon  "* : — 

*  A  singular  charm  breathes  from  these  humble  churches.  It 
is  not  their  poverty  that  moves  us,  for  one  would  say  that  they 
are  inhabited,  even  when  no  one  is  present  in  them.  Is  it  not 
rather  their  modesty  that  enraptures  ?  For  with  their  low 
belfries,  their  roofs  hiding  under  the  trees,  they  seem  to  make 
themselves  small,  and  humiliate  themselves  beneath  God's  great 
sky.  Indeed  they  have  not  been  built  from  any  motive  of 
pride,  or  from  a  pious  whim  of  some  great  one  of  the  earth  in 
his  agony.  On  the  contrary  we  feel  that  tliey  are  the  simple 
expression  of  a  need,  of  the  honest  cry  of  a  desire,  and  like  the 
shepherd's  bed  of  dry  leaves,  they  are  the  shelter  that  the  soul 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  73 

has  made  to  stretch  itself  at  ease  in  its  hours  of  fatigue.  These 
village  churches  in  a  greater  degree  than  those  of  towns,  have 
the  air  of  belonging  to  the  character  of  the  country  which  bears 
them,  of  sharing  more  in  the  life  of  the  families,  who  from 
father  to  son,  come  to  the  same  spot,  there  to  place  their  knees 
on  the  same  stones.  Every  Sunday,  every  day,  coming  in  and 
going  out,  do  they  not  see  and  see  again  the  graves  of  their 
relatives,  whom  they  thus  have  near  them  at  their  prayers,  as  at 
a  larger  home  from  which  they  are  never  quite  absent  ?  These 
churches  then  have  a  sense  of  a  harmony  which,  enclosed 
between  the  baptistry  and  the  graves,  completes  the  life  of 
these  men.  It  is  not  so  with  us,  who  driving  eternity  beyond 
the  walls,  exile  our  dead  to  the  suburbs  to  lodge  them  in  the 
knacker's  quarters  in  the  midst  of  chemical  works,  and  beside 
artificial  manure  stores.' 

Again,  talking  of  the  Lady  Chapel  of  Pont  L'^Abbe  : — 

'  Man  brings  here  all  the  sensuality  of  his  heart,  suppressed 
by  the  climate,  starved  by  poverty,  and  deposits  it  at  the  feet 
of  Mary  under  the  eyes  of  the  divine  woman,  and  thus  satisfies 
and  excites  his  inextinguishable  thirst  for  enjoying  and  loving. 
The  rain  may  come  in  through  the  roof,  there  may  be  neither 
forms  nor  chairs  in  the  nave,  none  the  less  you  will  eveiywhere 
find  this  chapel  of  the  Virgin  shining,  scrubbed,  neat  with  fresh 
flowers  and  burning  tapers.  There  the  whole  religious  tender- 
ness of  Bidttany  seems  to  concentrate  itself;  there  is  the  softest 
comer  of  her  heart,  her  weakness,  her  passion,  her  ti-easure. 
There  may  be  no  flowers  in  the  fields,  but  there  are  some  in  the 
church ;  man  is  poor,  but  the  Virgin  is  rich ;  ever  beautiful,  she 
smiles  for  you,  and  souls  in  pain  go  to  warm  themselves  at  her 
knees  as  at  a  hearth  that  never  cools.  We  are  astonished  at 
the  earnestness  of  the  people  in  its  beliefs;  but  does  one 
know  all  the  delight,  all  the  joy  that  they  give,  all  the  pleasure 
that  is  drawn  from  them  ?  Is  not  asceticism  a  superior  Epicur- 
eanism, fasting  the  refinement  of  good  living  ?  Religion  has  in 
it  almost  carnal  sensations ;  prayer  has  its  debauchery,  morti- 
fication its  raptures,  and  the  men  who  come  in  the  evening  to 
kneel  before  this  dressed  statue  feel  thei*e,  too,  heart -beatings 
and  wild  intoxication,  while  in  the  streets  the  children  of  the 


74  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

town  coming  back  from  school,  stop  thoughtful  and  awe- 
stricken  to  look  at  the  woman  glowing  in  the  window  who 
gazes  down  upon  them  with  her  gentle  eyes.' 

At  St.  Malo  the  friends  visited  the  tomb  of  Chateau- 
briand, placed  on  the  precipitous  side  of  a  small  island  in 
the  bay  facing  the  west. 

'There  he  will  sleep,  his  head  turned  to  the  west,  in  the 
tomb  built  on  a  cliff,  his  immortality  will  be  like  his  life, 
deserted  of  all  and  surrounded  by  storms.  The  waves  with 
the  centuries  will  long  murmur  round  this  great  monument ; 
they  will  spring  to  his  feet  in  the  tempests,  or  in  the  summer 
mornings,  when  the  white  sails  are  spread  and  the  swallow 
comes  from  beyond  the  seas,  long  and  gentle,  they  will  bring 
him  the  voluptuous  melancholy  of  distances,  and  the  caress  of 
the  open  air.  And  the  days  thus  slipping  by,  while  the 
billows  of  his  native  beach  shall  be  for  ever  swinging  between 
his  birthplace  and  his  tomb,  the  heart  of  Rene,  cold  at  last,  will 
slowly  crumble  into  nothingness  to  the  endless  rhythm  of  that 
eternal  music' 

Louis  Bouilhet  once  said  of  Flaubert,  '  There  is  a  curse 
upon  him  ;  the  man  is  a  lyric  poet,  and  cannot  write  a  verse.' 
In  reading  such  passages  as  the  above  we  feel  the  lyrical 
tendency,  and  since  Flaubert  has  left  no  verses  behind  him, 
will  do  wisely  to  accept  the  remainder  of  Bouilhet\s  state- 
ment. 

In  the  same  volume  in  which  these  poetical  fragments 
occur  there  is  an  equally  poetical  description  of  a  slaughter- 
house ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Flaubert  would 
have  protested  that  the  Breton  churches,  the  tomb  of 
Chateaubriand,  the  low  quarters  of  Brest,  and  the  slaughter- 
house, were  alike  worthy  of  the  artist's  pen  and  pains  ;  that 
the  description  of  a  disembowelled  ox  is  neither  more  nor 
less  artistic,  provided  it  be  well  executed,  than  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  fine  man  stepping  out  of  the  sea  after  a  bathe,  or 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  75 

of  a  castle  which  has  been  the  home  of  one  of  the  makers  of 
romance. 

At  this  period  of  his  Hfe,  and  at  times  during  all  his  life, 
Flaubert  was  undoubtedly  contrary ;  he  deliberately  said 
and  wrote  things  which  he  knew  would  be  shocking  to 
others,  but  which  were  not  shocking  to  himself.  In  this 
there  was  a  certain  amount  of  temper  ;  the  man  felt  himself 
to  be  what  he  was,  large-hearted,  affectionate,  brave,  honest, 
unselfish  and  pure,  but  he  was  not  conventional ;  that  is  to 
say,  he  did  not  accept  as  final  the  inconsistent,  fluctuating 
and  yet  dogmatic  views  of  the  society  in  which  he  lived,  on 
questions  of  morality  and  questions  of  taste.  He  was  a 
citizen  not  only  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  but  of  all  the 
world  that  has  ever  been.  Aristophanes  and  Horace  were 
not  to  him  books  more  or  less  well  printed  and  bound  in 
calf ;  they  were  men — living  men,  honest  men,  good  men — 
men  Avho  lived  in  great  times,  and  played  a  great  part  in 
those  times  ;  the  best  specimens  of  two  epochs,  when  men 
were  abnormally  active.  It  seemed  to  him  far  less  impure 
to  talk  as  they  talk,  or  as  Falstaff  talks  in  the  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor,  than  to  be  a  smug  citizen  of  Rouen,  applauding 
the  government  for  protecting  morality,  and  at  the  same 
time  slily  sniggering  in  coffee-houses  about  the  gay  life  that 
is  led  by  students  at  Paris.  There  is  nothing  more  pitiful 
than  the  conventional  morality  of  the  nineteenth  centiu-y. 
It  is  the  age  of  whitewash  ;  and,  what  is  worse,  the  age  of 
double  entente.  The  coarsest  statement,  the  grossest  act, 
are  less  demoralising  than  the  dainty  allusion,  the  veiled  but 
not  hidden  vice.  All  this  Flaubert  felt,  and  at  the  same 
time  saw,  that  it  was  not  universally  felt  even  by  his  intimate 
friends.  Further,  on  many  subjects  he  was  predisposed  to 
be  less  delicate  than  other  people  through  having  been  the 
son  of  a  hard-working  enthusiastic  surgeon,  and  accustomed 


76  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

from  his  earliest  youth  to  the  talk  and  the  sight  of  the 
dissecting  room.  He  and  his  sister,  before  they  were  ten 
years  old,  used  to  peep  through  a  window  and  watch  their 
father  at  work.  A  surgeon,  moreover,  will  speak  to  you  of  a 
well-executed  dissection  as  a  beautiful  thing,  beautiful  in 
the  artistic  sense ;  and  he  is  right ;  the  horror  with  which 
ordinary  humanity  regards  the  dissecting  table  is  a  weakness 
the  result  of  ignorance  ;  while  the  curiosity  that  is  begot  of 
this  horror  is  none  the  less  unwholesome. 

A  man  who  deliberately  thinks,  says,  and  publishes  what 
is  impure  to  himself,  is,  from  every  point  of  view,  artistic  as 
Avell  as  moral,  indefensible ;  but  it  is  quite  possible  to  have 
an  entirely  different  atmosphere  from  that  of  the  world  in 
Avhich  one  lives ;  to  see  more  and  more  plainly.  This  was 
eventually  Flaubert''s  case ;  he  eventually  came  to  write  what 
was  repellent  to  people  of  narrow  experience,  without  being 
aware  of  the  fact ;  was  dismayed,  aggrieved,  when  he  dis- 
covered what  he  had  done.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  difficult 
to  acquit  him  of  having  allowed  himself  to  be  influenced,  in 
the  earlier  period  of  his  life,  by  a  reaction  against  the  nerve- 
less propriety  of  the  middle-class  man.  The  easy  optimism 
of  frivolous  persons,  ready  to  accept  any  formula  which 
acquits  them  of  the  necessity  of  thinking  for  themselves,  was 
a  red  rag  to  Flaubert.  He  saw  the  world  full  of  sorrow  as 
well  as  of  joy;  he  saw  that  the  innocent  often  were  brought 
down  and  in  misery,  while  the  guilty  flourished ;  and  he 
became  furious  with  indignation  when  other  people,  to 
excuse  their  slothfulness  or  cowardice,  refused  to  open  their 
eyes  to  obvious  facts.  For  this  reason  he  invariably  rejoiced 
in  the  discovery  of  baseness  in  the  great  ones  of  the  earth, 
revelled  in  scandals  by  which  spotless  characters  were 
suddenly  discovered  to  be  inwardly  tainted.  Such  things 
were  so  many  documentary  proofs  that  this  is  not  the  best 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  77 

of  all  possible  worlds,  but  a  world  of  conflicting  forces,  in 
which  good  and  evil  are  strangely  and  inexplicably  mingled, 
and  in  which  even  the  best  people  act  under  the  influence  of 
mixed  motives. 

Flauberfs  health  was  much  benefited  by  the  tour  in 
Brittany  ;  on  the  day  of  starting  he  was  seized  with  one  of 
his  '  attacks  of  nerves,**  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  them, 
and  never  again  during  the  three  months  that  the  holiday 
lasted. 

Immediately  on  the  return  from  Brittany,  the  two  friends 
set  to  work  to  write  their  book.  Flaubert  describes  the 
process,  in  a  way  which  becomes  only  too  familiar  as  each 
successive  work  is  brought  into  the  world  with  even  greater 
difficulty  than  its  predecessor. 

'You  ask  me  for  information  about  our  work,  Maxima's  and 
mine  ;  you  must  know  then  that  I  am  driven  wild  by  writing ; 
style,  which  is  a  thing  that  I  take  veiy  much  in  earnest,  agitates 
my  nerves  hon-ibly.  I  vex  myself,  I  prey  on  myself,  there  are 
days  when  I  am  quite  ill  from  it,  and  when  I  am  feverish  at 
night.  The  further  I  go  on  the  less  capable  I  find  myself  of 
expressing  the  idea.  What  a  quaint  mania  it  is  to  pass  one's 
life  wearing  oneself  out  over  Avords,  and  sweating  all  day  long 
over  arranging  sentences ;  there  are  occasions,  it  is  true,  when 
one  rejoices  hugely,  but  this  pleasure  is  bought  at  the  cost  of 
how  much  discouragement  and  bitterness .''  To  day,  for  example, 
I  have  spent  eight  hours  in  coiTCcting  five  pages,  and  I  think 
that  I  have  worked  well ;  judge  of  the  rest !  it  is  pitiful.  What- 
ever happens  I  will  finish  this  work,  which  in  its  veiy  object  is  a 
hard  bit  of  exercise,  then  next  summer  I  will  see  about  tempting 
Saint  Anthony.  If  that  does  not  go  from  the  very  beginning,  I 
have  done  vnth  style  for  several  long  years.  I  will  go  in  for 
Gi'eek,  history,  archaeology,  anything,  in  short  everything  easier. 
For  I  often  think  the  useless  trouble,  I  give  myself,  stupid.' 

In  another  passage  he  compares  his  difficulties  with  style 
to  those  of  a  man  '  who  has  a  correct  ear  and  who  plays  the 


78  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

violin  out  of  tune,  his  fingers  refuse  to  produce  exactly  the 
sound  of  which  he  is  conscious,  "  Then  the  tears  flow  from 
the  eyes  of  the  poor  scraper,  and  the  bow  falls  from  his 
fingers.""  *" 

Every  now  and  then  Flaubert  was  compelled  to  breathe 
the  same  air  as  the  citizens  of  Rouen  at  close  quarters.  Here 
is  a  description  of  such  an  occasion  : — 

'  I  have  recently  seen  something  fine,  and  I  am  still  over- 
powered by  the  grotesque  and  at  the  same  time  mournful 
impression  Avhich  this  spectacle  has  left  upon  me.  I  have  been 
present  at  a  reform  dinner  !  What  taste !  What  cookery  !  Wliat 
wines !  and  what  speeches !  Nothing  has  given  me  a  more 
complete  contempt  for  success,  than  the  contemplation  of  the 
price  at  which  it  is  obtained.  I  remained  cold  with  the  nausea 
of  disgust  in  the  midst  of  the  patriotic  enthusiasm  which  was 
stirred  by  "  the  helm  of  the  state  " — "  the  abyss  into  which  we 
are  drifting" — "the  honour  of  our  flag" — "the  shadow  of  our 
standards  " — "  the  fraternity  of  peoples/'  and  other  cakes  of  the 
same  meal.  Never  will  the  finest  works  of  the  masters  receive 
the  fourth  part  of  that  applause;  no  book  of  de  Musset  will 
ever  cause  such  cries  of  admiration  to  be  uttered  as  came  from 
all  parts  of  the  room  to  greet  the  virtuous  bellowings  of 
M.  Odilon  Barrot,  and  the  lamentations  of  M.  Cremieuse  on  the 
state  of  our  finances.  And  after  a  session  till  past  nine  o'clock 
in  front  of  cold  tui'key,  sucking  pig,  and  in  the  company  of  my 
locksmith,  who  patted  me  on  the  shoulder  at  the  fine  passages, 
I  came  away  chilled  to  the  entrails.  However  dismal  one's 
opinion  of  men  may  be,  bitterness  rises  in  one's  heart  when 
such  delirious  inanity  is  flaunted  before  you,  such  a  tangle  of 
imbecility.  In  nearly  all  the  speeches  there  was  laudation  of 
Beranger.  How  this  good  Beranger  is  ill-used !  I  owe  him  a 
grudge  for  the  adoration  which  the  middle-class  minds  bestow 
on  him.  There  are  people  of  great  talent  who  have  the 
misfortune  to  be  admired  by  the  small  natures ;  bouilli  is 
disagreeable  because  it  is  the  basis  of  small  housekeeping; 
Beranger  is  the  bouilli  of  modern  poetry;  everybody  can  eat 
of  it,  and  like  it.' 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  DEATH  OF  ALFRED  LE  POITTEVIN 

During  the  spring  of  1848  it  became  clear  that  the  days  of 
Alfred  le  Poittevin  were  numbered.  Flaubert  and  Ducamp 
went  to  visit  him  at  Neuville ;  they  found  him  '  marching 
gaily  to  death,'  the  victim  of  an  incurable  disease  of  the 
heart.  At  parting  he  asked  Ducamp  to  send  him  a  copy  of 
Spinosa  from  Paris. 

On  the  third  of  April  1848  Flaubert  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  Ducamp  : — 

'  Alfred  died  on  Monday  at  midnight ;  I  buried  him  yesterday. 
I  watched  him  for  two  nights  ;  I  wrapped  him  in  his  winding 
sheet,  I  gave  him  the  kiss  of  farewell,  and  I  saw  his  coffin 
soldered.  I  spent  two  long  days  thei*e ;  while  watching  him  I 
read  Kreutzer's  Religions  of  Antiqtdty.  The  window  was  open, 
the  night  was  superb,  one  heard  the  cock  crow,  and  a  moth 
fluttered  round  the  candle.  I  shall  never  forget  all  that,  nor 
the  appearance  of  his  face,  nor  the  first  night,  at  midnight,  the 
distant  sound  of  a  hunting  horn  which  came  to  me  through  the 
forest.  On  the  Wednesday  I  went  for  a  walk  all  the  afternoon 
with  a  bitch  that  followed  me  uncalled.  This  bitch  had  taken 
a  fancy  to  him  and  always  accompanied  him  when  he  went  out 
alone.  The  night  before  his  death  she  howled  horribly  and 
could  not  be  silenced.  I  sat  down  on  the  moss  in  several 
places,  I  smoked,  I  looked  at  the  sky,  I  lay  down  behind  a  mass 
of  broom  tufts  and  I  slept. 

'The  last  night  I  read  Autumn  Leaves;  I  always  pitched  upon 
the  pieces  that  he  liked  the  best,  or  that  had  for  me  a  bearing 

79 


80  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

upon  the  present.  From  time  to  time  I  went  to  lift  the  veil 
which  had  been  put  over  his  face  to  look  at  him.  I  was 
wrapped  in  a  cloak^  which  had  belonged  to  my  father,  and 
which  he  only  wore  once,  on  the  day  of  Caroline's  wedding. 
When  the  day  appeared,  towards  four  o'clock,  the  watcher  and 
I  began  our  work.  I  lifted  him,  turned  him  round  and  enfolded 
him.  The  impression  of  his  cold,  stiff  limbs  remained  all  day  in 
my  finger  ends.  He  was  dreadfully  decomposed,  we  put  two 
sheets  upon  him.  When  he  had  been  thus  arranged  he  was  like 
an  Egyptian  mummy  enclosed  in  its  bandages,  and  I  felt,  I 
cannot  tell  you  what  a  sentiment  of  joy  and  liberty  for  him. 
The  mist  was  white,  the  forest  began  to  show  in  outline  on  the 
sky,  the  two  torches  blazed  in  the  dawning  whiteness  ;  birds 
sang,  and  I  i-epeated  to  myself  that  phrase  of  his  Belial. 

'  "  He  will  go,  happy  bird,  to  salute  the  rising  sun  amid  the 
pine  trees  "  :  or  rather  I  heard  his  voice  saying  it  to  me,  and  the 
whole  day  I  was  deliciously  possessed  by  it.  They  placed  him 
in  the  hall ;  the  doors  were  taken  off  their  hinges  and  the  great 
air  of  the  morning  came  in  with  the  coolness  of  the  rain  that 
had  begun  to  fall.  He  was  carried  by  men  to  the  cemetery ; 
the  journey  lasted  more  than  an  hour.  Following  behind  I 
could  see  the  coffin  swing  with  the  movement  of  a  boat  that  is 
pushed  on  rollers.  The  sei'vice  was  atrocious  in  its  length.  At 
the  cemetery  the  earth  was  moist ;  I  approached  the  edge  of 
the  grave  and  watched  the  pellets  fall  one  by  one ;  it  seemed 
to  me  that  there  fell  a  hundred  thousand. 

'  To  return  to  Rouen  I  mounted  on  the  box  with  Bouilhet ; 
the  rain  fell  heavily;  the  horses  went  at  a  gallop,  I  shouted 
to  urge  them  on ;  the  air  did  me  worlds  of  good.  I  slept  all 
that  night,  and  I  may  say  all  to-day. 

'  That  is  what  I  have  lived  on  since  Tuesday  evening.  I  had 
unheard  of  perceptions  and  inexpressible  whirls  of  ideas ;  a 
heap  of  things  came  back  to  me  with  choirs  of  music  and  clouds 
of  perfumes. 

'  Up  to  the  time  when  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  do  any- 
thing, he  used  to  read  Spinosa  till  one  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
every  night  in  bed.  On  one  of  the  last  days  when  the  window 
was  opened  and  the  sun  came  into  the  room,  he  said :  "  Shut 
it ;  that  is  too  beautiful,  too  beautiful." 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  81 

'There  were  moments,  dear  Max,  when  I  had  singular 
thoughts  of  you,  and  made  sad  comparisons  of  images.  Fare- 
well, I  embrace  you,  and  I  have  a  strong  wish  to  see  you,  for  I 
want  to  tell  you  things  incomprehensible.' 

Thus  did  the  soul  of  Flaubert  find  temporary  consolation 
in  description.  He  never  forgot,  never  ceased  to  regret, 
Alfred  le  Poittevin. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  ST.  ANTHONY 


From  April  1848  to  May  1849  there  is  a  gap  in  the  corre- 
spondence. At  this  time  Flaubert  was  working  hard  at  the 
St.  Anthony,  and  his  health  had  failed  again.  Maxime 
Ducamp,  with  whom  he  corresponded  throughout  this  period, 
having  suppressed  the  letters,  we  have  no  information  at  first 
hand. 

Early  in  1849  Ducamp  determined  to  carry  out  a  project 
which  he  had  long  formed  :  to  travel  for  two  or  three  years 
in  the  East.  He  wished  to  take  Flaubert  with  him,  Flaubert 
who  had  dreamed  all  his  life  of  '  stirring  the  sands  of  Syria 
with  his  own  feet,""  of  riding  on  camels  and  elephants,  of 
watching  the  sunset  behind  the  pyramids,  of  bathing  in  the 
Ganges,  and  making  a  pilgrimage  to  Ceylon,  'which  the 
ancients  called  Taprobana ;  what  a  name  !  Taprobana !'  The 
mother  reluctantly  consented ;  she  could  not  resist  the 
representations  made  by  a  man  of  such  high  medical 
authority,  so  old  a  friend,  as  Dr.  Jules  Cloquet.  The  period 
of  departure  was  fixed  for  the  time  when  the  Temptation 
should  be  finished.  Ducamp  patiently  waited,  and  when  the 
appointed  epoch  arrived — the  autumn  of  1849 — before 
departing  to  the  land  of  his  dreams,  Flaubert  read  his  work 
to  Ducamp  and  Bouilhet;  up  to  that  time  they  had  been 
entirely  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  the  treatment  which  he 
would  give  to  his  subject ;  he  had  refused  to  confide  his  plan 


82 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  83 

to  them  till  the  whole  was  finished  ;  then  he  would  read  the 
complete  work. 

Early  in  the  autumn  Flaubert  wrote  to  Ducamp,  'the 
Temptation  is  finished,  come  ! '  Ducamp  started  at  once  for 
Croisset ;  found  Bouilhet  already  established  there ;  and  the 
reading  began.  It  lasted  four  days ;  eight  hours  a  day ; 
from  mid-day  till  four  in  the  afternoon ;  from  eight  in  the 
evening  till  midnight.  At  the  beginning,  Flaubert  waving 
the  pages  above  his  head,  cried  :  '  If  you  do  not  utter  howls 
of  enthusiasm,  the  reason  is,  that  nothing  is  capable  of 
moving  you."" 

For  two-and-thirty  hours  the  friends  listened  in  silence ; 
at  the  end  of  each  reading  Madame  Flaubert  used  to  inquire, 
'  Well  ?  ■*  and  they  had  no  reply  to  make.  Before  the  last 
sitting  Ducamp  and  Bouilhet  conferred  privately;  they 
determined  to  give  their  opinion  frankly,  without  reserve ; 
the  question  of  Flaubert's  literary  future  was  at  stake. 

'  That  evening,  after  the  last  reading,  towards  midnight, 
Flaubert  tapping  on  the  table  said :  "  Now,  it  is  with  the 
three  of  us,  tell  me  frankly  what  you  think."  Bouilhet 
replied  :  "  We  think  you  ought  to  throw  it  into  the  fire  and 
never  speak  of  it  again."  *■ 

A  conversation  followed,  which  lasted  till  eight  oVlock  in 
the  morning ;  Flaubert  at  last,  conquered  rather  than  con- 
vinced, gave  way.  St.  Antliony  was  not  burned  but  con- 
signed to  a  drawer.  As  the  friends  left  the  room  Maxime 
Ducamp  thought  he  saw  the  flutter  of  a  black  dress  trailing 
on  the  staircase,  and  that  it  was  Madame  Flaubert,  whose 
maternal  love  had  driven  her  to  listen  for  the  end  of  the 
conference.  He  gratuitously  assumes  that  she  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  friends  were  jealous  of  her  son. 

In  1869,  after  the  publication  of  Salammbo,  Flaubert 
again  took  up  the  St.  Anthony/,  and  again  put  it   aside; 


84  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

in  1876  lie  started  afresh ;  and  this  time  the  work  was 
pubHshed. 

Though  the  piibHcation  of  the  St.  Antliony  belongs  to  the 
end  of  Flaubert's  life,  its  creation,  the  influences  under  which 
it  was  composed,  belong  to  the  beginning  of  his  career ;  and 
though  the  work  that  we  have  is  considerably  reduced  in 
bulk  from  that  to  which  Ducamp  and  Bouilhet  listened  in 
silence  for  two-and-thirty  hours,  its  merits  and  defects  are 
obviously  the  same. 

The  Temptation  of  St.  Antliony  is  a  succession  of  dissolv- 
ing views,  a  pageantry  of  rich  fancies,  in  which  all  the  fables 
that  have  haiuited  the  human  brain  take  shape,  and  are 
marshalled  before  the  mystified  saint. 

The  scene  opens  at  sunset ;  the  holy  man  is  watching  the 
departure  of  the  great  planet  from  a  platform  on  the  side  of 
a  mountain  in  the  Thebaid.  In  one  direction  he  sees  the 
fertile  level  valley  of  the  Nile,  and  the  mighty  river  shining- 
like  a  lake  on  the  horizon ;  in  the  other  the  desert  stretches 
its  monotonous  billows  of  yellowish  grey  to  the  feet  of  the 
Libyan  mountains,  whose  outlines  are  slightly  softened  by 
violet  mists ;  in  the  intervening  space  floats  a  fine  dust  of 
gold  melting  in  the  vibrations  of  light. 

St.  Anthony  expresses  disgust  with  life  ;  reviews  the  past, 
and  regrets  the  past  content.  Night  comes ;  a  wedge-shaped 
flight  of  swift-winged  birds  passes  overhead ;  he  wishes  he 
could  follow  them.  In  the  vague  whiteness  of  the  night 
appear  pointed  noses,  upright  ears,  gleaming  eyes;  there  is 
a  sound  of  moving  gravel.  St.  Anthony  advances ;  it  is  a 
troop  of  jackals,  they  skurry  off",  all  except  one  ;  the  saint 
would  like  to  stroke  him,  but  the  animal  makes  off*;  again  the 
bitterness  of  solitude.  The  stars  appear,  and  on  the  platform 
falls  the  shadow  of  a  great  cross ;  the  saint  withdraws  into 
his  hut  and  reads  the  Scriptures  ;  he  begins  to  wonder  by 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  85 

what  power  Jesus  resisted  the  temptations  of  the  devil,  and 
Solomon  those  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  The  former  clearly, 
because  he  was  God,  the  latter  because  he  was  a  magician  ; 
what  a  sublime  science  is  magic  !  As  the  saint  allows  his 
imagination  to  dwell  on  it,  the  shadow  of  the  cross  changes 
its  forms;  the  amis  become  two  horns ;  St.  Anthony  horrified, 
calls  to  heaven  for  help,  and  the  shadow  resumes  its  original 
shape.  The  saint  rises;  again  his  past  triumphs  recur  to 
him ;  he  thinks  he  sees  a  procession  winding  its  way  to  the 
mountain,  possibly  a  wealthy  female  penitent  coming  to  ask 
for  comisel ;  he  hopes  it  may  be  so,  calls  out  and  gives 
directions  as  to  the  path ;  echoes  answer  him,  and  he 
distinguishes  other  voices,  as  if  the  air  were  speaking,  which 
offer  him  the  love  of  women,  wealth,  military  glory,  popu- 
larity, rest,  satisfied  vengeance.  Then  things  change ;  the 
palm-tree  at  the  edge  of  his  platform  becomes  the  gigantic 
bust  of  a  Avomaii  leaning  over  the  abyss ;  phantoms  float  past 
him,  showing  against  the  night  like  scarlet  paintings  on  ebony ; 
terrified,  fatigued,  exhausted,  the  saint  falls  upon  his  mat. 

Then  there  appears  upon  the  earth  a  vast  shadow,  more 
subtile  than  other  shadows,  with  uncertain  edges ;  it  is  the 
Devil  leaning  on  the  roof  of  the  hut  with  huge  bat  wings 
outspread,  under  which  nestle  the  seven  deadly  sins. 
St.  Anthony  dreams  that  he  is  floating  away  in  a  boat  on 
the  flowery  Nile ;  he  wakes,  is  thirsty,  finds  his  pitcher 
broken;  is  hungry,  the  jackals  have  taken  his  loaf;  then 
there  arises  before  him  the  image  of  a  rich  banquet ;  he 
recognises  the  wile  of  the  Tempter ;  but  even  as  he  con- 
gratulates himself  upon  his  deliverance,  he  stumbles  over  a 
metal  cup.  He  lifts  it ;  coins  pour  from  it,  jewels,  infinite 
wealth ;  he  flings  himself  upon  the  heap  of  riches ;  finds 
nothing ;  seizes  his  knife ;  it  slips  from  his  hand ;  he  falls 
against  the  side  of  his  cabin  in  a  trance. 


86  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

He  is  transported  in  the  spirit  to  Alexandria,  to  Con- 
stantinople, where  the  Emperor  places  his  own  diadem  upon 
him  ;  he  finds  himself  in  a  hall  where  a  king  feasts  with  his 
courtiers  ;  the  king  is  Nebuchadnezzar ;  Anthony  watches 
him  and  reads  his  thoughts,  they  become  his  own  thoughts  ; 
he  is  himself  Nebuchadnezzar,  disgusted  with  the  abject 
crowd  of  flatterers  who  surround  him;  he  longs  to  wallow  in 
baseness,  to  degrade  before  men  the  object  of  their  fears; 
he  flings  himself  on  all  fours  on  the  table,  and  bellows  like 
a  bull.     He  has  fallen  in  his  own  cabin,  and  wakes. 

Horrified  at  the  sinful  vision  he  implores  pardon,  and 
inflicts  penance ;  while  he  is  still  vigorously  scourging 
himself,  and  to  his  dismay  finding  pleasure  in  the  blows,  the 
procession  of  the  Queen  of  Sheba  arrives.  She  offers  him  all 
that  the  heart  of  man  can  desire,  or  imagine  it  desires, 
including  her  love.  He  rejects  her.  When  she  has  dis- 
appeared, St.  Anthony  discovers  a  strange  figure  squatting  at 
the  threshold  of  his  cabin  ;  it  proves  to  be  Hilarion,  his 
former  pupil,  who  gives  Anthony  a  flattering  description  of 
his  own  life ;  the  saint  becomes  uplifted  with  pride  of 
intellect;  Hilarion  dexterously  takes  advantage  of  this 
weakness  to  insinuate  the  scientific  baselessness  of  his  faith, 
reproaches  him  with  his  idleness  in  not  studying  its  origins  ; 
he  takes  a  pen  from  his  belt,  and,  with  a  roll  of  papyrus 
in  his  hand,  prepares  to  take  down  the  words  of  wisdom 
that  drop  from  Anthony's  lips.  The  saint  maintains  the 
authority  of  Scriptia-e  ;  Hilarion  points  out  its  contradic- 
tions ;  Anthony  longs  for  wider  knowledge,  and  Hilarion 
leads  him  into  a  vast  hall  in  which  all  the  heresies  are 
disputing.  The  heresiarchs  pass  in  turn  before  Anthony, 
their  attendants  behind  them  practising  the  rites  of  their 
particular  heresy.  First  comes  the  ]irophet  Manes,  en- 
throned,  with    his    ninety-five    disciples    around    him,    all 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  87 

gleaming  with  oil,  thin  and  very  pale ;  the  Priseillanians, 
who  believed  that  the  Devil  created  the  world  ;  Valentinians, 
who  declared  it  to  be  the  work  of  a  God  in  delirium ;  the 
Carpocratians ;  the  Nicolaitans  ;  the  Messalians,  who  held 
work  to  be  sinful ;  the  Paternians,  who  thought  that  the 
inferior  parts  of  the  body  were  made  by  the  Devil,  and 
therefore  eat,  drink,  and  debauch  themselves. 

Tertullian  strides  in,  clothed  in  a  Carthaginian  mantle, 
and  denounces  the  heresiarchs ;  reveals  their  previous  history. 
All  flee,  and  in  the  place  of  Tertullian  is  seen  a  beautiful 
woman ;  it  is  Priscilla,  the  prophetess,  the  companion  of 
Montanus ;  close  to  her  appears  Maximilla,  his  other 
companion,  eventually  Montanus  himself.  Follow  the 
Arcontics  in  hair  shirts,  the  Tatianians  in  garments  of  reeds, 
the  Valesians,  who  emasculate  themselves ;  the  Cainites, 
who  worship  Cain,  and  Judas,  by  whose  agency  the  death  of 
Christ  was  brought  about,  and  the  consequent  Redemption. 
Then  a  tumultuous  band  clothed  in  wolf-skins,  wearing 
crowns  of  thorns  and  armed  with  clubs,  rush  in ;  they  are 
the  Circoncellions,  who  wish  to  reduce  everything  to  one 
dead  level  of  ruin.  The  hall  is  filled  with  tumult ;  after  a 
while,  peace  is  restored,  and  Arius  is  heard  disputing  with 
Sabellius  ;  all  the  heretics  take  part  in  the  discussion,  they 
vaunt  again  and  again  to  Anthony  their  martyrs,  their 
ecstasies,  their  prayers,  their  raptures  ;  they  brandish  before 
him  their  gospels  :  the  gospel  of  the  Hebrews,  the  gospel  of 
the  Lord,  the  gospel  of  Thomas. 

Then  Anthony  is  dragged  roughly  into  another  hall ;  there 
he  sees  a  long  chrysalis  of  the  colour  of  blood;  it  has  the  head 
of  a  man,  surrounded  by  rays,  and  the  word  Knouphis 
written  in  Greek  characters  upon  it.  On  the  walls  of  the 
room  are  medallions  representing  the  heads  of  animals,  an 
ox,  a  lion,  an  eagle,  a  dog,  an  ass.      Men  and  women  sit 


88  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

huddled  together  in  silence,  distinguishable  by  the  glimmer- 
ing light  from  some  clay  lamps  hung  under  the  images  on 
the  walls.  They  talk  under  their  breath  of  their  homes,  of 
their  families,  of  imminent  persecution ;  boast  of  the  ease 
with  which  the  Pagans  are  deceived,  who  believe  that  they 
worship  Knouphis ;  suddenly  an  Energumen  stands  up  and 
chants  their  profession  of  faith ;  in  its  pauses  they  rock 
themselves  and  sing  in  cadence,  Kyrie  Eleison.  At  length 
the  Energumen  performs  the  incantations  of  a  snake-charmer, 
and  chants  the  praises  of  the  serpent  elevated  by  Moses  in 
the  wilderness,  drunk  by  the  Messiah  in  the  water  of 
Baptism.  A  sod  of  turf  is  brought  and  held  to  a  huge 
basket,  which  stands  ornamented  with  flowers  in  the  midst 
of  the  hall,  and  a  monstrous  python  slowly  emerges,  to  be 
caressed  with  rapture  by  the  faithful  Ophidians.  St.  Anthony 
swoons  with  horror  ;  as  he  recovers,  he  sees  the  Nile  winding 
like  a  vast  serpent  between  its  sands. 

Again  he  is  transported,  this  time  to  the  vaults  of  the 
Colosseum ;  he  is  with  the  Martyrs,  who  shrink  from 
martyrdom,  but  recover  to  curse  a  Montanist  who  is  dis- 
covered among  them.  Drugs  are  given  them  which  they 
eagerly  swallow  ;  they  pass  in  to  the  arena ;  Anthony  finds 
himself,  in  the  darkness  of  night,  in  the  burial-ground  of  the 
Martyrs ;  noble  women  come  secretly  to  mourn  over  their 
tombs  ;  others  bring  wine  and  food  for  the  dead,  and  practise 
heathen  rites  over  the  graves  of  their  kindred.  As  the 
moniing  dawns  they  disperse  ;  and  Anthony  is  transported 
to  India,  where  he  watches  the  self-oblation  of  a  gymno- 
sophist. 

Again  he  wakes  in  his  hut.  A  fire  approaches ;  it  proceeds 
from  a  bronze  vase  carried  by  a  man  followed  by  a  woman  ; 
the  flame  is  blue  and  fluttering ;  the  man  is  Simon  Magus ; 
the  woman  Ennoia,  who  has  been  Helen  of  Troy,  Lucretia, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  89 

Delilah,  the  ]Moon.  Simon  Magus  vaunts  his  magic  powers ; 
prepares  to  bestow  on  Anthony  the  second  baptism,  the 
baptism  of  fire ;  the  saint  in  despair  cries  for  holy  Avater ; 
the  mysterious  fire  passes  away  in  smoke ;  Simon  and 
Ennoia  disappear. 

The  smoke  has  become  a  thick  mist ;  Anthony  is  lost ; 
stretches  out  his  arms  in  vain  to  grasp  the  cross;  a  wind 
rises,  the  mist  is  dispersed,  and  a  gloriously  beautiful  youth 
appears,  his  fair  long  hair  descending  upon  his  shoulders ;  he 
is  attended  by  a  short  snub-nosed  man  of  simple  countenance. 
These  are  Apollonius  of  Tyana,  the  worker  of  miracles,  and 
his  faithful  Damis. 

Damis  and  Apollonius  tell  their  story  turn  about ;  Damis 
proves  to  be  a  kind  of  Sancho  Panza,  and  continually  inter- 
rupts his  companion  to  compel  Anthony's  admiration,  who 
listens  to  the  tale  with  impatience,  and  frequently  orders  the 
strangers  off  the  premises.  Apollonius  eventually  offers  to 
show  Anthony  Jesus  in  person,  whereupon  the  saint  falls  at 
the  foot  of  the  cross  in  prayer,  and  Apollonius  and  his  com- 
panion, loudly  contemptuous  of  his  brute  superstition,  float 
off  into  the  air  and  disappear. 

Apollonius  had  awakened  in  Anthony  the  sin  of  curiosity ; 
he  wishes  to  know  something  of  the  pagan  gods.  They  pass 
before  him :  the  antediluvian  gods,  formless  or  hideous ; 
Vishnu  and  the  Hindu  hierarchy  of  divinities ;  Buddha 
himself,  who  tells  his  story,  while  Hilarion  points  out  the 
similarities  with  the  incidents  of  the  Gospels.  The  Hindu 
gods  disappear  in  smoke  as  Buddha  ends  his  tale,  which 
Hilarion  declares  to  be  the  faith  of  hundreds  of  millions  of 
men. 

A  mysterious  creature  follows.  It  has  the  head  of  a  man 
and  the  body  of  a  fish  ;  it  advances  upright,  flapping  with  its 
tail ;    it   has    small    arms,  a  patriarchal    countenance.     St. 


90  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Anthony  laughs.  The  figure  deprecates  ridicule,  and  an- 
nounces itself  as  Oannes,  an  ancient  god  of  the  Chaldeans. 
This  suggests  Babylon  to  the  saint,  who  is  transported  to 
the  temple  of  Belus,  and  the  garden  of  Ashtaroth.  Ormuz 
appears,  and  is  driven  away  by  Ahriman  ;  the  great  Diana  of 
the  Ephesians  bewails  the  loss  of  her  divinity  ;  a  procession  of 
the  votaries  of  the  great  mother  enters  and  performs  her  rites. 

The  scene  returns  to  Egypt ;  and  in  the  far  distance,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Nile,  a  woman  stands  veiled,  bearing  an 
infant.  It  is  Isis  ;  she  lifts  her  head  to  heaven  and  her  voice 
is  heard,  as  she  tells  of  the  loss  of  Osiris,  and  of  the  Egyptian 
worshippers. 

The  gods  of  Olympus  are  then  revealed,  seated  in  majesty 
on  their  thrones.  Their  beauty  moves  Anthony,  Hilarion 
praises  them ;  points  out  the  details  in  their  worship  which 
correspond  with  the  Christian  faith  ;  Anthony,  in  hoiTor, 
recites  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Then  Olympus  is  stirred  ;  a 
voice  is  heard,  indistinct  and  terrible,  like  the  roaring  of 
waves,  the  sound  of  the  forest  in  the  storm,  the  bellowing  of 
the  wind  among  precipices ;  it  is  the  cry  of  the  older  gods, 
of  the  Titans,  announcing  the  end  of  the  dynasty  of  Jove. 
Jupiter  comes  down  from  his  throne,  his  thunder-bolt  is 
extinguished  in  smoke ;  Minerva,  Hercules,  Pluto,  Diana, 
Mars,  Bacchus,  Apollo,  Aphrodite  herself,  pass  into  the  abyss. 

A  procession  winds  its  way  among  the  rocks,  formed  of  all 
the  divinities  that  men  have  ever  worshipped,  the  spirits 
they  have  feared.  The  gods  of  Scythia,  of  the  Cimmerians, 
of  the  Etrurians ;  the  ancient  Latin  gods ;  the  household 
gods  of  Rome  ;  even  the  god  Crepitus, 

Last  of  all  is  heard  a  clap  of  thunder,  and  a  voice  : — 

*  I  was  the  God  of  armies,  the  Lord,  the  Lord  God. 
'  I  spread  the  tents  of  Jacob  upon  the  hills,  and  nurtui'ed  my 
people  as  they  fled  in  the  sands. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  91 

'  I  am  He  who  burned  Sodom  ;  who  made  the  Deluge  swallow 
the  earth.  It  is  I  who  drowned  Pharaoh,  with  the  princes,  the 
sons  of  kings,  the  chariots  of  war  and  the  horsemen. 

'  A  jealous  God,  I  hated  other  gods.  I  crushed  the  impure  ; 
I  beat  down  the  proud  :  and  my  desolation  ran  from  the  right 
hand  to  the  left,  like  a  dromedaiy  that  is  set  loose  in  a  field  of 
corn. 

'  To  deliver  Israel  I  chose  the  simple.  Angels  with  wings  of 
flame  spoke  to  them  in  the  bushes. 

'  Perfumed  with  nard,  with  cinnamon,  with  myrrh,  with  trans- 
parent robes,  and  high-heeled  shoes,  women,  brave  in  heart, 
went  to  slay  captains.  The  wind,  as  it  passed,  carried  away  my 
prophets. 

'  I  had  graven  my  law  upon  tables  of  stone. 

'  It  shut  in  my  people  as  in  a  citadel.  They  were  my  people, 
and  I  was  their  God.  The  earth  was  mine,  the  men  were  mine, 
with  their  thoughts,  their  works,  their  labouring  tools,  and  their 
posterity. 

'  My  ark  rested  in  a  three-fold  sanctuary,  behind  curtains  of 
purple  and  burning  lamps.  I  had  a  whole  tribe,  who  swung 
censers,  to  serve  me,  and  the  High  Priest  in  a  robe  of  hyacinth, 
bearing  on  his  breast  precious  stones,  arranged  in  order  of 
symmetry. 

'  Woe  !  Woe  !  The  Holy  of  Holies  is  opened,  the  veil  is 
torn,  the  odours  of  sacrifice  are  lost  in  all  the  winds.  The  jackal 
howls  in  the  sepulchres  ;  my  temple  is  destroyed,  my  people  are 
scattered. 

'They  have  strangled  the  priests  with  the  girdles  of  their 
garments.  The  women  are  captives ;  the  precious  vessels  are 
melted ! 

'  (^The  voice  passing  into  the  distance.) 

'  I  was  the  God  of  armies,  the  Lord,  the  Lord  God. 

'  {Then  there  is  a  vast  silence  ;  a  night  of  deep  darkness.) 

'  Anthony.  All  are  passed. 

'  A  Voice.  I  remain. 

'  [And  Hilarion  is  before  him,  but  transfigured,  like  an  arch- 
angel, beaming  with  light  as  the  sun,  and  so  tall  that  Anthony 
throws  back  his  head  to  look  up  at  him.] 

'  Anthony.  Who  then  art  thou  .^ 


92  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

*  HiLARioN.  My  kingdom  is  of  the  measure  of  the  Universe ; 
and  my  desire  has  no  ends.  I  move  always,  setting  free  the 
mind  and  weighing  worlds,  without  hate,  without  fear,  without 
pity,  without  love,  and  without  God,     I  am  called  Science. 

'  Anthony  (starling  back).  Thou  shouldst  rather  be  .  .  .  the 
Devil. 

'  HiLARioN  (Jixing  on  him  his  glowing  eyes).  Dost  thou  care  to 
see  him  ? 

*  The  saint  gives  way  to  his  curiosity,  and  the  Devil  picking 
him  up  on  liis  horns  flies  away  with  him  into  space. 

'  The  vast  wings  of  the  Devil  conceal  him  from  Anthony,  who 
feels  as  though  he  were  floating  on  a  cloud ;  the  desert  becomes 
a  yellow  stain  on  the  earth's  surface,  the  ocean  a  puddle. 
Anthony  wishes  to  see  the  mountains,  behind  which  the  sun 
sets;  the  devil  speaks;  "The  sun  never  sets"  :  the  voice  does 
not  startle  Anthony,  it  seems  like  an  echo  of  his  own  thought. 
Soon  the  earth  is  a  ball ;  it  is  seen  turning  on  its  poles  in  the 
midst  of  the  azure,  rushing  round  the  sun  ;  again  the  voice  says  ; 

' "  Humble  thyself,  pride  of  man ;  the  earth  is  not  the  centre 
of  the  Universe."  ' 

They  arrive  at  the  moon,  which  proves  to  be  desei't ;  glide 
through  the  fields  of  stars.  Sometimes  a  comet  passes  them, 
then  the  calm  of  the  numberless  lights  is  restored.  Anthony 
makes  out  the  paths  of  the  stai's,  the  interlacing  of  their  orbits, 
he  despises  the  limitation  of  his  old  imaginings ;  at  last,  over- 
burdened with  the  majesty  of  infinity,  he  asks,  '  What  is  the 
object  of  all  that  ? '     'It  has  no  object,'  is  the  reply. 

The  Devil  describes  suns  beyond  suns,  solar  systems  beyond 
solar  systems ;  and  Anthony,  oppressed  and  terrified,  cries, 
'  Enough,  enough,  I  am  afraid.      I  am  falling  into  the  abyss.' 

'The  Devil  (stopping  and  balancing  himself  softly  on  his  wings). 
The  Nothing  is  not  !  The  Void  is  not !  Everywhere  there 
are  bodies  which  move  on  the  immovable  background  of  space ; 
— and  if  that  were  limited  by  anything,  it  would  be  no  longer 
Space,  but  a  body ;  it  has  no  bounds. 

'  Anthony  (in  amazement).     No  bounds  ! 

'  The  Devil.  Rise  into  the  sky  for  ever  and  for  ever ;  thou  wilt 
never  reach  the  summit !  Descend  below  the  earth  for  milliards 
and  milliards  of  centuries,  thou  wilt  never  touch  the  bottom ; 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  93 

for  there  is  no  bottom,  no  summit,  no  height,  no  depth,  no 
bound ;  and  Space  is  comprised  in  God,  who  is  not  a  portion  of 
space,  so  much,  or  so  much  less  greatness,  but  the  Infinite  ! 

'  Anthony  {slowly).  Matter  then  ...  is  part  of  God  ? 

'  The  Devil.  Why  not  ?     Can'st  thou  know  where  He  ends  ? 

'Anthony.  On  the  contrary,  I  humble  myself,  I  abase 
myself  before  His  power ! 

'The  Devil.  And  yet  thou  wouldst  bend  Him!  Thou 
speakest  to  Him,  thou  adornest  Him  even  with  virtues,  with 
kindness,  justice,  mercy,  instead  of  recognising  that  He 
possesses  all  perfections  ! 

'To  conceive  more  than  that,  is  to  conceive  God  beyond 
God,  being  beyond  being.  He  is  then  the  only  Being,  the  only 
Substance. 

'  If  Substance  could  be  divided,  it  would  lose  its  nature,  it 
would  be  no  longer  itself,  God  would  exist  no  more.  It  is  then 
indivisible,  as  it  is  infinite ;  and  if  He  had  a  body.  He  would 
be  composed  of  parts.  He  would  no  longer  be  one.  He  would 
no  longer  be  infinite.     He  is  then  not  a  person. 

'  Anthony.  What !  My  prayers,  my  sobs,  the  sufferings  of 
my  flesh,  the  raptures  of  my  ardour,  all  that — has  gone  to  a  lie 
— into  space  .  .  .  uselessly — like  the  cry  of  a  bird,  like  a  whirl 
of  dead  leaves.  {He  weeps.)  Oh  no  !  There  is  above  every- 
thing, some  one,  a  great  Soul,  a  Lord,  a  Father,  whom  my  heart 
adores,  and  who  must  love  me  ! 

'  The  Devil.  Thou  desirest  that  God  should  not  be  God ;  for 
if  He  felt  love,  anger,  or  pity.  He  would  pass  from  His  perfec- 
tion to  a  greater  or  smaller  perfection.  He  cannot  descend  to 
a  sentiment ;  or  limit  Himself  in  a  form. 

'Anthony.  One  day  however,  I  shall  see  Him. 

'The  Devil.  With  the  blessed,  wilt  thou  not.^  When  the 
finite  will  enjoy  the  infinite  in  a  restricted  place  enclosing  the 
absolute ! 

'Anthony.  I  care  not,  there  must  be  a  heaven  for  good, 
and  a  hell  for  evil. 

'  The  Devil.  Do  the  requirements  of  thy  reason  make  the 
law  of  things  ?  Doubtless  evil  is  indifferent  to  God  since  the 
earth  is  covered  with  it !  Is  it  from  impotence  that  He  endures 
it .''     Or  from  cruelty  that  He  maintains  it  ?    Thinkest  thou  that 


94  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

He  is  continually  busying  Himself  with  re-adjusting  the  Universe 
as  an  imperfect  -work,  and  that  he  watches  over  all  the  move- 
ments of  all  beings,  from  the  flight  of  the  butterfly  to  the 
thought  of  man  ? 

'  If  He  created  the  Universe,  His  providence  is  superfluous. 
If  Providence  exists,  the  creation  is  defective. 

'  But  good  and  evil  have  to  do  with  thee  alone, — as  night  and 
day,  pleasure  and  pain,  death  and  birth,  which  are  in  relation 
to  one  corner  of  space,  to  a  special  environment,  to  a  particular 
interest.  Since  the  Infinite  alone  is  permanent,  there  is 
Infinity ;  and  that  is  all. 

'  (The  Devil  has  spread  his  long  wings  further  and  further,  and 
now  tliey  cover  space.) 

'  Anthonv  (710  longer  sees.  He  faints).  A  homble  dread  chills 
me  to  the  bottom  of  my  soul.  It  surpasses  the  power  of  my 
pain.  It  is  as  a  death  deeper  than  death.  I  stand  in  the 
immensity  of  darkness.  Darkness  enters  into  me.  My  con- 
sciousness breaks  under  this  expansion  of  nothingness  ! 

'The  Devil.  But  things  happen  to  thee  only  by  the  inter- 
vention of  thy  mind.  As  a  concave  mirror  it  defoiTns  what  it 
reflects  :  and  means  fail  thee  to  verify  its  exactness. 

'  Never  wilt  thou  know  Space  in  its  full  extent ;  consequently 
canst  thou  not  form  any  idea  of  its  cause,  have  an  exact  notion 
of  God,  nor  even  say  that  the  Universe  is  infinite, — for  first 
wouldst  thou  need  to  know  Infinity. 

'  Form  is  perhaps  an  error  of  thy  senses,  Substance  an 
imagination  of  thy  thought. 

'  Unless,  the  Universe  being  a  perpetual  flowing  and  reflowing, 
the  appearance  to  the  contraiy  is  the  truest  that  there  is,  the 
illusion  the  only  reality. 

'  But  art  thou  sure  of  seeing  }  Art  thou  even  sure  of  living  } 
Perhaps  nothing  is ! 

'  ( The  Devil  has  seized  St.  Anthony  ;  and  holding  him  at  arm's 
length,  he  glares  at  him  with  open  maw,  ready  to  devour  him.) 

'  Adore  me  then  !  and  curse  the  phantom  that  thou  callest  God  ! 

'  {Anthony  in  a  last  movement  of  hope  raises  his  eyes  to  heaven. 
The  Devil  leaves  him.)  ' 

At  this  point  we  feel  that  the  visions  are  ended  ;  Anthony 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  95 

has  been  tempted  by  the  kist  of  carnal  delights,  by  the  lust 
of  money,  by  the  lust  of  power,  by  the  lust  of  the  imagina- 
tion ;  he  has  been  shown  all  the  variations  of  his  own  creed, 
the  creeds  of  other  peoples,  the  beauty  of  the  gods  of  Greece, 
the  homely  superstitions  of  Italy  ;  at  last  he  has  been  con- 
fronted with  Science,  which  bids  him  humble  himself  before 
the  futility  alike  of  these,  and  of  his  own  faith,  to  which  he 
still  clings,  not  by  the  force  of  reason,  but  by  the  strength 
of  an  habitual  sentiment.  Now  is  the  time  to  be  rewarded 
by  the  final  apparition.  But  no,  Flaubert  has  not  yet  emptied 
his  bag  of  monstrosities :  Death  and  Debauchery  court  the 
saint,  wearied  after  his  struggle  with  the  Devil ;  the  Sphinx 
and  Chimaera  argue  in  his  presence  ;  the  Gryphon  appears, 
and  other  less  familiar  monsters,  the  Zadhuzag,  the  Unicorn, 
the  Catoblepas,  the  Basilisk,  Pigmies,  the  men  who  rest 
beneath  the  shadows  of  their  own  feet,  which  turn  into  a 
forest  wherein  the  Cynocephali  leap  and  bound ;  all  sea 
beasts ;  things  that  are  neither  animal  nor  vegetable. 
Anthony  enraptured  with  the  various  forms  of  life,  thinks 
he  is  assisting  at  its  beginning  ;  wishes  to  be  all  forms  him- 
self, to  descend  to  the  beginnings  of  matter — to  be  matter — 
when  '  the  day  at  last  appears,  and,  as  when  the  curtains  are 
lifted  from  a  tabernacle,  clouds  of  gold  rolling  away  in  heavy 
spirals  disclose  the  sky.  In  the  very  centre,  in  the  very  disc 
of  the  sun,  beams  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ.  Anthony  makes 
the  sign  of  the  cross  and  returns  to  his  prayers."' 

Were  Bouilhet  and  Ducamp  right  in  their  summary,  com- 
plete, final  condemnation  of  this  work  ? 

Its  defects  must  have  been  far  more  apparent  in  the 
original  and  longer  form  ;  but  it  was  always  susceptible  of 
reduction.  Would  it  not  have  been  better  to  advise  '  nonum 
prematur  in  annum,''  to  have  put  it  aside,  and  to  have 
returned  to  it  when  it  had  become  unfamiliar  ? 


96  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Ducamp's  criticism  is  unsympathetic  and  pedantic.  '  Under 
the  pretext  of  pushing  romanticism  to  its  furthest  limits, 
Flaubert,  without  suspecting  it,  had  taken  a  retrograde  step.' 

This  was  not  a  question  of  romantic  and  classic  ;  it  was  a 
question  whether  Flaubert  had  succeeded  in  realising  his 
literary  dream  of  a  prose  poem,  whether  a  form,  almost 
peculiar  to  himself,  had  acquired  the  necessary  substance  to 
take  its  place  as  a  ^\  ork  of  art. 

To  judge  such  a  work  it  must  be  judged  from  the  author's 
point  of  view,  and  not  from  any  preconceived  notions  of 
what  is  and  what  is  not  admissible  in  art.  Flaubert's  idea 
was  to  write  a  dream  which  should  pass  like  a  flash, — all  in 
one  breath ;  the  reader  was  to  be  carried  on  from  one 
glorious  vision  to  another  without  respite,  without  thought ; 
at  the  same  time  he  was  to  be  reduced,  mentally,  to  St. 
Anthony's  condition  ;  to  be  in  the  fourth  century  a.d.,  with 
no  knowledge  that  would  make  the  existence  of  the  Basilisk 
and  the  Catoblepas  less  probable  to  him  than  that  of  the 
elephant  and  the  hippopotamus ;  with  the  inclination  to 
marvels,  with  faith  in  magic,  and  accustomed  to  see  pagan 
rites  and  ceremonies  in  full  activity  around  him.  St. 
Anthony  had  not  the  comfortable  assurance  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  with  regard  to  the  futility  of  Montanus  and 
Apollonius ;  he  had  seen  men  living  like  the  Indian  Fakirs, 
and  calling  themselves  Christians  ;  he  had  seen  devout  and 
honovirable  women  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  hermits  ;  he  had 
himself  seen  and  defied  the  devil ;  the  air  for  him  was  full  of 
evil  spirits. 

Flaubert  is  unable  to  maintain  the  saint's  simplicity  of 
mind  ;  sometimes  we  are  St.  Anthony,  sometimes  we  are 
criticising  St.  Anthony,  often  St.  Anthony  becomes  a  mere 
interjection.  At  times  the  note  of  low  comedy  jars  upon  us ; 
at  others  our  reveries  are  disturbed  by  a  sarcastic  remark 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  97 

which  brings  us  to  earth  again ;  at  times  we  drop  from  our 
high  visions  to  the  merest  bathos. 

Further,  to  be  certain  of  their  effect  the  allusions  in  such 
a  work  should  be  tolerably  familiar ;  if  explanations  are 
required,  they  should  be  introduced  in  an  artistic  form,  as, 
for  instance,  is  excellently  well  done  when  the  orgies  of  the 
Ophidians  are  described  ;  but  we  are  not  affected  in  any 
way,  except  to  sheer  boredom,  by  pages  from  Pliny ""s  Natural 
History  and  similar  works,  such  as  the  following : — 

'  All  kinds  of  horrible  beasts  rise  up ;  the  Tragelaphus,  half 
stag  half  ox ;  the  MyTmecoleo,  lion  in  front  ant  behind,  whose 
genitals  are  reversed  ;  the  Python  Aksar,  sixty  cubits  long, 
which  terrified  Moses ;  the  great  weasel  Pastinaca,  which  kills 
trees  by  its  odour ;  the  Presteros,  which  renders  mad  by  its 
touch  ;  the  Mirag,  a  horned  hare  living  in  the  isles  of  the  sea, 
etc.  etc' 

Again,  Apollonius  is  made  to  say  : — 

*  We  came  back  by  the  region  of  the  Aromates,  by  the  land  of 
the  Gangarides,  the  promontory  of  Comaria,  the  country  of  the 
Sachalites,  the  Adramites  and  the  Homerites ; — then  across  the 
Cassanian  mountains,  the  Red  Sea  and  the  island  of  Topazus,  we 
penetrated  into  Ethiopia,  by  the  kingdom  of  the  Pygmies.' 

Doubtless  Flaubert  could  have  given  chapter  and  verse 
for  all  these  names,  and  have  pointed  out  the  correct  route 
on  a  map  of  the  ancient  world  ;  for  in  these  things  he  was 
conscientious ;  but  to  the  ordinary  reader,  even  to  the 
ordinary  classical  scholar,  these  strings  of  names  mean  little 
or  nothing  ;  nor  are  we  all  equally  in  love  with  the  sound  of 
Taprobana.  In  verse  we  can  feel  the  majesty  of  '  vast 
Acroceravmian  walls'"  and  revel  in  the  mere  sound,  without 
requiring  to  know  the  locality  of  the  cliffs  in  question  ;  but 
in  prose  we  require  an  association  as  well  as  a  sound.  This 
love  of  mere  names  is  an  inherent  vice  in  Flaubert ;  it  spoils 

G 


98  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

a  good  deal  of  the  Anthony^  a  good  deal  more  of  Salammbo, 
and  nearly  mars  the  St.  Julien.  He  had  a  retentive  memory 
for  such  names,  especially  when  they  were  associated  with 
grotesque  facts,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  that  for  artistic 
purposes  they  were  valueless.  He  uses  them  recklessly,  as 
for  instance  :  '  The  rustic  gods  withdraw  weeping,  Sartor, 
Sarrator,  Vervactor,  Collina,  Vallona,  Hostilinus,  all  covered 
with  little  hooded  mantles  and  carrying  a  hoe,  or  a  fork,  a 
mattock,  a  pick.'  In  the  same  way  there  is  a  whole  page  of 
minor  gods  whose  names  and  attributes  are  given,  as  they 
might  be  in  a  folk-lore  dictionary.  '  You  wanted  to  make 
music,  and  you  have  only  made  a  noise,'  was  a  sound 
criticism  of  the  friends. 

A  similar  defect  is  the  accumulation  of  grotesque  faiths 
and  superstitions  among  the  heresies  ;  Flaubert  had  a  mania 
for  the  grotesque,  he  never  forgot  an  illustration  of  it ; 
often  this  leads  him  to  a  repetition  of  effects,  he  will  not 
be  done  with  his  joke;  it  is  the  story  of  the  'young 
phenomenon."' 

Further,  Flaubert  had  a  most  unhappy  knack  of  calling 
his  books  by  the  wrong  names.  This  is  not  a  Temptation  of 
St.  Anthony  ;  it  is  a  Vision  of  St.  Anthony  :  called  by  that 
name  it  is  no  longer  open  to  the  criticism  of  Ducamp,  '  that  it 
has  no  progressive  movement. ""  If  we  are  not  invited  by  the 
title  to  expect  movement  and  progress,  we  can  enjoy  without 
being  disturbed  by  unfulfilled  expectations  the  words  and 
gorgeous  phrases  that  pass  '  like  a  glorious  roll  of  drums, 
through  the  triumph  of  his  dream.'  It  is  one  of  Flaubert's 
curious  obstinacies  that  when  he  had  once  fixed  on  a  title 
he  could  not  change  it.  He  formed  the  idea  of  writing  a 
Temptation  o/  St.  Anthony  and  a  Sentimental  Education, 
early  in  life  ;  and  though  the  works  eventually  published 
vmder    these    titles    differed    widely   in   scope   from   those 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  99 

originally  planned,  the  titles  remained,  to  the  confusion  of 
the  reader  and  the  delight  of  the  malignant  critics  ;  even 
Salammho  and  Madame  Bovary  might  be  named  with  closer 
reference  to  their  respective  subjects,  while  Bouvard  et 
Ptcuchet,  which  might  be  the  name  of  a  trading  firm,  tells 
us  nothing  whatever  about  the  contents  of  the  book.  The 
Story  of'  a  Simple  Soid,  and  St.  Jidian  the  Hospitable,  are 
alone  well  named :  the  third  of  the  short  stories  might  as 
well  be  entitled  Herod  Antipas,  or  John  the  Baptist,  as 
Herodias. 

In  spite  of  these  defects  the  St.  Anthony  remains  the  work 
of  a  giant ;  certain  thoughts  are  too  big  for  the  ordinary 
forms  of  art,  certain  messages  have  to  be  conveyed  through 
the  minds  of  great  men  in  unfamiliar,  incongruous  forms. 
Shakespeare  had  to  be  disburdened  of  Lear,  Goethe  of  Faust. 
Let  us  take  what  these  men  have  given  us  and  be  thankful. 

Criticism  is  not  always  an  infallible  business.  Ducamp  and 
Bouilhet  alike  failed  to  observe  that,  in  the  first  St.  Anthony, 
the  pig,  who  was  introduced  to  be  tempted  by  pride  and 
convinced  that  he  would  become  a  wild  boar,  was  a  confusion. 
It  was  St.  Anthony  of  Padua,  not  St.  Anthony  of  Egypt, 
whose  holiness  was  enhanced  by  the  faithful  companionship 
of  this  delectable  animal. 

The  work  was  inspired  by  Alfred  le  Poittevin.  In  the 
long  scene  with  the  Devil  we  trace  the  influence  of  those 
long  hours  of  metaphysical  discussion  with  him  ;  and  when 
it  was  published  in  1876  it  was  dedicated  to  his  memory, 
twenty-eight  years  after  his  death.  Flaubert's  affections 
were  permanent. 

The  result  of  the  adverse  judgment  of  the  friends  was, 
that  Flaubert  determined  to  write  a  story  in  which  his 
irrepressible  lyrical  tendency  should  find  no  possible  outlet. 
Bouilhet  suggested,  the  day  after  the  reading  of  St.  Anthony 


100  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

was  over :  '  Why  should  you  not  write  the  story  of 
Delaunay  ?  "*  The  story  of  Delaunay  is  the  story  of  Madame 
Bovary  ;  Delaunay  had  been  a  pupil  of  Dr.  Flaubert,  had 
acquired  a  country  practice  near  Rouen,  and  had  been  the 
victim  of  a  worthless  wife.  This  story  Flaubert  expanded 
into  Madame  Bovary  ;  and  again  by  an  infelicitous  title 
restricted  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  what  is  merely  an 
important  episode  in  his  work  ;  diverting  him  from  perceiving 
the  width  of  its  scope. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE    EAST 


On  ^Monday,  October  29th  1849,  Flaubert  started  from 
Paris  for  his  long-anticipated  Eastern  tour.  He  was  accom- 
panied by  Ducamp,  who  carried  a  quantity  of  the  then 
clumsy  photographic  apparatus ;  and  by  a  servant  —  a 
Corsican  named  Sassetti — who  proved  altogether  satisfactory. 
His  health  had  been  misatisfactory  again  for  the  previous 
year ;  and  we  cannot  sufficiently  admire  the  devotion  of 
Ducamp,  who  took  this  responsibility  upon  himself — the  more 
so,  that  his  task  was  often  made  extremely  depressing  by 
Flauberfs  home-sickness.  He  appeared  to  Ducamp  not  to 
be  enjoying  the  torn*  in  the  least ;  not  to  be  observing  ;  and 
then  at  times  there  were  those  stupendous  jokes.  But 
though  on  the  Nile  Flaubert  talked  of  the  Seine,  as  on  the 
Seine  he  talked  of  the  Nile,  his  letters  prove  that  he  was 
really  keenly  observing  and  delighting  in  the  long-dreamed- 
of  East. 

Extracts  from  his  letters  will  show  the  way  in  which  the 
journey  was  affecting  him  ;  also  the  care  with  which  he 
patiently  collected  materials  for  the  great  Oriental  romance 
Avhich  he  had  long  been  meditating. 

To  HIS  Mother. 

*  Malta.      Wednesday  night,  7-8  November. 
'  Know  you  one  thing,  poor  dear  old  woman,  one   splendid 
fact.     I  have  not  been  sea-sick.     Not  a  bit  (except  on  leaving 

101 


102  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Marseilles,  where  I  got  rid  of  a  glass  of  rum,  which  I  had 
swallowed  to  give  me  courage).  Otherwise  during  the  whole 
of  the  crossing,  that  is  to  say  from  Sunday  morning  to  this 
evening,  I  have  been  one  of  the  sauciest,  if  not  the  most  saucy 
of  the  passengers.  It  has  not  been  the  same  with  Maxime 
and  Sassetti,  who  have  shot  a  sufficient  number  of  cats.  As  for 
me !  walks  on  the  deck,  dinners  with  the  officers,  or  I  stand  on 
the  bridge  between  the  two  paddle-boxes  in  the  company  of  the 
Captain,  where  I  parade  myself  in  piratical  attitudes,  my  cap  on 
one  side,  my  cigar  in  my  beak.  I  take  lessons  in  navigation,  in 
manoeuvring,  etc.  In  the  evening  I  gaze  at  the  waves,  and 
meditate,  draped  in  my  cloak,  like  Childe  Harold.  In  short  I 
am  the  real  card.  I  do  not  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me, 
but  I  am  adored  on  board.  The  gentlemen  call  me  Father 
Flaubert,  so  imposing,  as  it  appears,  is  my  mug  upon  the  briny. 
You  see,  poor  old  woman,  all  is  well  and  the  start  is  good ;  but 
don't  go  and  think  that  the  sea  has  been  calm ;  on  the  contraiy, 
the  weather  has  been  a  bit  rough,  the  east  wind  delayed  us 
twelve  hours.' 

The  first  sight  of  the  East  at  Alexandria  is  thus 
described  : — 

'  When  we  were  two  hours  from  the  coast  of  Egypt  I  went  up 
on  to  the  fore  lookout  with  the  boatswain,  and  saw  the  seraglio 
of  Abbas  Pacha  like  a  black  dome  on  the  blue  sea.  The  sun 
beat  upon  it.  I  saw  the  East  through,  or  rather  in,  a  great 
silvery  light  pouring  on  the  sea.  Soon  the  outline  of  the  shore 
was  discerned,  and  the  first  thing  we  saw  on  land  were  two 
camels  led  by  a  driver,  and  then  all  along  the  quay  worthy 
Arabs,  who  were  fishing  with  lines  in  the  most  peaceful  manner 
in  the  world, 

'  Disembarking  was  a  scene  of  the  most  bewildering  uproar. 
Negroes,  negresses,  camels,  turbans,  whacks  dealt  right  and  left 
with  guttural  cries  fit  to  rend  one's  ears.  I  snatch  myself  a 
bellyful  of  colours,  as  an  ass  fills  itself  with  oats.  The  stick 
plays  a  big  part  here ;  everybody,  who  wears  a  respectable  coat, 
thwacks  everyone,  who  wears  a  dirty  coat ;  when  I  say  coat,  I 
should  say  breeches.  Numbers  of  gentlemen  are  to  be  seen 
wandering  about  the  streets  with  nothing  on  but  a  shirt  and  a 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  103 

long  pipe.  All  the  women  except  those  of  the  lowest  class  are 
veiled,  with  ornaments  on  their  noses,  which  hang  and  swing 
like  those  on  horses'  bridles.  On  the  other  hand  if  the  face  is 
not  seen,  the  whole  bosom  is  exposed.  Modesty,  changing 
country,  changes  place,  like  a  muddled  ti'aveller  who  rides  now 
on  the  imperial,  now  inside. 

'  You  see  that  all  is  going  well,  poor  mother.  We  are  covered 
mth  flannel  from  head  to  foot.  Spirits  and  health  are  alike 
good.  Maxime  watches  me,  and  waits  on  me  as  though  I  were 
a  child.  I  believe  he  would  put  me  under  a  glass  case  if  he 
could,  for  fear  something  may  happen  to  me.' 

To  Louis  BOUILHET. 

'Cairo.     December  1st,  1849. 

'  I  begin,  my  dear  old  man,  with  a  kiss  for  your  good  head, 
and  with  breathing  on  to  this  paper  all  the  inspiration  which 
can  make  your  mind  come  to  meet  me.  For  the  rest  I  believe, 
that  you  must  be  thinking  awfully  much  of  us,  for  we  think 
awfully  much  of  you,  and  miss  you  a  hundred  times  a  day.  At 
the  present  moment  the  moon  sparkles  on  the  minarets,  all  is 
silent.  From  time  to  time  there  is  a  barking  of  dogs  ;  in  front 
of  my  window,  whose  curtains  are  drawn,  I  have  in  the  garden 
a  black  mass  of  trees,  seen  in  the  pale  brilliancy  of  the  night. 
I  am  writing  at  a  square  table  covered  with  a  green  cloth,  by 
tlie  light  of  two  candles,  and  taking  my  ink  from  a  pomatum 
pot.  I  hear  the  young  Maxime  behind  the  partition  messing 
with  his  photography  ;  above,  the  mutes  are  sleeping,  that  is  to 
say  Sassetti  and  the  dragoman,  which  aforesaid  dragoman  is,  to 
say  the  truth,  one  of  the  most  aiTant  ruffians  one  could  mention. 

'  As  for  my  Excellency,  it  is  clothed  in  a  great  Nubian  shirt  in 
white  cotton  ornamented  with  tufts,  and  of  a  cut  which  it  would 
take  long  to  describe.  My  head  is  completely  bare,  saving  a 
lock  on  the  back  of  it  (it  is  by  this  that  Mahomed  is  to  lift  you 
on  the  Day  of  Judgment)  and  covered  with  a  red  tarbouche, 
which  simply  crackles  with  scarlet,  and  for  the  first  few  days 
made  me  crack  with  heat.  We  have  fairly  Oriental  mugs.  .  .  . 
And  you,  poor  beloved  old  sinner,  what  are  you  doing  in  that 
dirty  Fathei-land,  tenderly  dreaming  of  which  I  sometimes 
surprise  myself  .>     I  think  of  our  Sundays  at  Croisset,  when   I 


104     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

used  to  hear  the  noise  of  the  iron  gate,  and  to  see  the  stick 
appear,  the  portfolio  and  yourself.  .  .  .  When  shall  we  resume 
those  endless  talks  at  the  comer  of  the  fire,  sunk  in  my  green 
arm-chairs  ?  .  .  .  How  is  Melsenis  getting  on  ? 

'  In  one  word  here  is  my  epitome  of  what  I  have  felt  up  to 
this  point :  little  surprise  at  nature,  in  the  way  of  landscape,  sky 
and  desert  (except  the  mirage)  ;  prodigious  amazement  at  the 
towns  and  the  men.  Hugo  would  say  :  "  I  was  nearer  to  God 
than  to  humanity."  That  doubtless  has  to  do  with  the  fact  that 
I  had  dreamed,  studied,  and  imagined  more  what  has  to  do  with 
horizons,  verdure,  sand,  trees,  sun,  than  houses,  streets,  customs 
and  usages.  Nature  has  been  to  me  something  recovered,  the 
rest  something  found.  But  there  is  a  fresh  element,  which  I 
did  not  expect  to  see  here,  and  which  is  immense,  that  is  the 
grotesque.  All  the  old  comedy  is  here  of  the  bethwacked  slave, 
the  crusty  seller  of  women,  the  rascally  merchant :  very  young, 
very  true,  charming.  ,  .  .  One  of  the  finest  things  is  the  camel. 
I  am  never  tired  of  seeing  this  strange  animal  pass,  which  struts 
like  a  turkey,  and  swings  its  neck  like  a  swan.  They  have  a  cry 
which  I  wear  myself  out  with  trying  to  reproduce  ;  I  hope  to 
bring  it  back  with  me,  but  it  is  difficult  because  of  a  certain 
gurgling,  which  vibrates  at  the  end  of  the  rattle  that  they  utter.' 

Like  all  other  European  travellers  Flaubert  visited  the 
Pyramids,  and  was  fairly  terrified  by  the  first  apparition  of 
the  Sphinx  ;  but  he  was  not  content  with  the  sights  which 
ordinarily  attract  Europeans  ;  he  would  know  the  East  more 
intimately :  dined  in  Turkish  restaurants,  where  people  eat 
with  their  fingers,  men  and  animals  make  themselves 
completely  at  home,  and,  from  time  to  time,  some  one  stands 
up  and  says  his  prayers  ;  learned  the  names  of  foods  and 
perfumes,  experimented  rashly  in  some  of  the  latter, — all 
with  a  view  to  future  literary  uses. 

'  To  come  back  to  the  life  that  we  lead  here,  I  had  a  splendid 
afternoon  some  days  back.  Maxime  had  remained  busy  over 
something.  I  took  Hassan  (the  second  dragoman,  whom  we 
have   temporarily  engaged)  and   made   my  way  to  the  Coptic 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  105 

bishop  to  have  a  talk  with  him.  I  went  into  a  square  court 
surrounded  with  columns,  in  the  middle  of  which  there  was  a 
little  garden,  that  is  to  say,  some  large  trees,  beds  of  dark 
greeneiy,  whose  border  was  formed  by  a  divan  in  trellised  wood. 
My  dragoman  with  his  wide  drawers  and  big-sleeved  jacket 
walked  in  front,  I  behind.  On  one  of  the  corners  of  the  divan 
Avas  seated  an  old  long-robe  with  a  repellent  expression,  a  white 
beard,  in  a  great  mantle,  and  surrounded  with  books  in  a 
strange  handwriting  scattered  on  all  sides.  At  a  certain 
distance  stood  three  doctors  in  black  robes,  younger,  and  with 
black  beards.  The  dragoman  said  :  "  Here  is  a  French  noble- 
man who  is  travelling  all  over  the  world  to  learn,  and  who 
comes  to  you  to  talk  of  your  religion."  (That  is  the  style  in 
which  we  treat  one  another.  Imagine  the  phrases  that  I 
invent.  .  .  .)  Well,  to  return  to  the  bishop.  He  received  me 
with  much  ceremony  ;  coffee  was  brought,  and  soon  I  began  to 
put  questions  to  him  touching  the  Trinity,  the  Virgin,  the 
Gospels,  the  Eucharist ;  all  my  old  lore  of  the  St.  Anthony 
rose  like  a  wave  in  me. 

'  It  was  superb,  the  blue  sky  over  our  heads,  the  trees,  the 
open  books,  the  old  fellow  ruminating  in  his  beard  to  find  me 
answers,  I  beside  him,  my  legs  crossed,  gesticulating  Avith  my 
pencil,  and  taking  notes,  while  Hassan  stood  up  immoveable 
translating  viva  voce,  and  the  three  other  doctors  seated  on 
stools  gave  opinions  with  their  heads,  and  from  time  to  time 
interpreted  a  few  words.  I  thoroughly  enjoyed  it.  That  was 
the  real  East,  the  land  of  religion,  and  ample  costumes.  When 
the  bishop  had  been  floored,  one  of  the  doctors  took  his  place, 
and  when  at  last  I  saw  that  they  all  had  signs  of  inflammation 
in  the  cheeks,  I  went  out.  I  shall  go  back,  for  there  is  much 
to  be  learned  there.  The  Coptic  religion  is  the  most  ancient 
Christian  sect  there  is,  and  hardly  anything  is  known  of  it  in 
Europe,  not  to  jsay  nothing  (as  far  as  I  know).  I  shall  go  in 
the  same  way  to  see  the  Armenians,  the  Gi*eeks,  the  Sunnites, 
and  above  all  the  Mussulman  doctors.' 

Since  that  time  more  has  been  learned  of  the  Coptic 
religion. 

*  In  Europe  people  imagine  the  Arab  race  to  be  very  grave 


106  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

here  it  is  very  gay,  very  artistic  in  its  gesticulations,  and  its 
ornaments.  Circumcisions  and  marriages  are  merely  so  many 
pretexts  for  rejoicings  and  music.  It  is  on  those  days  that  is 
heard  in  the  streets  the  strident  clucking  of  the  Arab  women, 
who,  packed  up  in  veils,  with  their  elbows  spread,  resemble,  on 
their  donkeys,  black  full  moons  advancing  on  something  inde- 
scribable with  four  legs.  .  .  .  For  one  who  observes  things 
with  some  attention  more  is  to  be  re-found  here,  than  found. 
A  thousand  notions,  that  one  had  in  a  state  of  germ  inside  one, 
grow  and  become  definite  like  a  renewed  reminiscence. 
Accordingly  as  soon  as  I  disembarked  at  Alexandria  I  saw 
advancing  towards  me  in  full  life  the  anatomy  of  the  Egyptian 
sculptures,  the  high  shoulders,  long  chests,  thin  legs,  and  so 
forth.  The  dances,  that  we  have  had  danced  for  our  benefit, 
have  too  hieratic  a  character  not  to  come  from  the  dances  of 
the  old  East,  which  is  always  young,  because  nothing  in  it 
changes.  The  Bible  is  here  a  picture  of  contemporary  manners. 
Do  you  know  that  only  a  few  years  ago  the  murderer  of  an  ox 
was  still  punished  with  death,  as  in  the  days  of  Apis  ?  .  .  . 
It  is  almost  impossible  but  that  in  a  short  time  from  now 
England  will  become  the  mistress  of  Egypt :  she  already  has 
Aden  filled  with  troops.  The  transit  of  Suez  will  be  very 
convenient  to  bring  you  the  redcoats  to  Cairo  one  fine  morning. 
We  shall  hear  of  it  in  France  a  fortnight  later,  and  we  shall  be 
very  much  astonished.  Remember  my  prediction.  On  the 
first  movement  in  Europe  England  will  take  Egypt,  Russia 
Constantinople,  and  we,  by  way  of  reprisal,  will  go  and  get 
ourselves  shot  in  the  mountains  of  Syria.' 

To  Louis   BoUILHET. 

'Cairo.  January  15,  1850. 
'  When  we  meet  again  many  days  will  have  passed,  I  mean 
many  things.  Shall  we  be  still  the  same  ^  Will  there  be  no 
change  in  the  communion  of  our  beings  ?  I  have  too  much  pride 
in  ourselves  not  to  think  so.  Work  on — remain  what  you  are. 
Continue  your  disgusting  and  sublime  way  of  earning  a  liveli- 
hood, and  then  we  will  see  about  making  the  skin  of  those 
drums  sound,  which  we  have  long  been  keeping  stretched  so 
tight.  .  .  .  The  second  pyramid  has  its  summit  all  white  with 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  107 

the  dung  of  eagles  and  vultures,  who  endlessly  float  around 
the  tops  of  these  monuments,  which  recalled  to  me  the  follow- 
ing from  St.  Anthony:  "The  gods  with  ibis'-heads  have  their 
shoulders  whitened  by  the  dung  of  birds."  Maxime  kept 
repeating :  "  I  saw  the  Sphinx  fleeing  in  the  direction  of  Libya. 
It  ran  like  a  jackal." 

'The  other  day  I  took  a  bath.  I  was  alone  in  the  recesses 
of  the  hot  room  watching  the  light  fall  through  the  glass  open- 
ings in  the  dome.  Warm  water  ran  everywhere ;  stretched 
out  like  a  calf  I  thought  of  a  heap  of  things ;  all  my  pores 
quickly  expanded.  It  is  very  voluptuous,  and  there  is  a  certain 
chastened  melancholy  in  thus  taking  a  bath  all  alone,  lost  in 
these  dim  halls,  where  the  least  noise  sounds  like  a  cannon 
shot,  while  the  naked  kellaks  call  to  one  another,  and  turn  you 
and  twist  you  like  embalmers  arranging  you  for  the  tomb. 

'  By  means  of  bakshish  (bakshish  and  whacks  are  the  basis  of 
the  Arab,  nothing  else  is  undei'stood,  and  nothing  else  is  seen) 
we  have  been  initiated. 

*  Serpents  were  placed  around  our  necks  and  hands  ;  incan- 
tations recited  over  our  heads  ;  they  breathed  into  our  mouths  ; 
it  was  very  amusing.  The  men  who  exercise  such  culpable 
industries  execute  their  vile  juggleries,  as  M.  de  Voltaire  used 
to  say,  with  singular  skill.  .  .  .  We  argue  Avith  priests  of  all 
religions.  It  is  sometimes  really  splendid  in  the  way  of  poses 
and  attitudes.  We  have  translations  made  us  of  songs,  stories, 
traditions,  everything  that  is  most  popular  and  oriental.  We 
employ  learned  men — literally.  We  have  our  fine  touches, 
heaps  of  impudence,  enormous  liberty  of  language.  The  pro- 
prietor of  our  hotel  even  finds  that  at  times  we  go  a  little  too 
far.  One  of  these  days  we  are  going  to  visit  some  sorcerers. 
AU  with  a  view  to  those  old  aims.' 

To  HIS  Mother. 

'Cairo.  February  3rd,  1850. 
'  1  have  caught  a  bad  cold  by  staying  five  hours  upright  on  a 
wall  to  see  the  ceremony  of  the  Danseh.  This  is  what  it  is  : 
the  word  "  danseh  "  means  "  trampling,"  and  never  was  a  name 
better  given.  It  has  to  do  with  a  man,  who  passes  on  horse- 
back over  several  others  crouched  on  the  ground  like  dogs.    At 


108  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

certain  epochs  of  the  year  this  festival  is  repeated  only  at  Cairo 
in  memory  of,  and  to  renew  the  miracle  of,  a  certain  holy 
Mussulman,  who  once  entered  Cairo  marching  thus  on  horse- 
back over  earthen  vessels  without  breaking  them.  The  sheik, 
who  repeats  this  ceremony,  should  wound  the  men  no  more 
than  the  saint  broke  the  earthen  vessels.  If  the  men  die  of  itj 
their  sins  are  the  cause.  I  saw  dervishes  there,  who  had  iron 
spits  passed  thi-ough  their  mouths^  and  their  chests.  Oranges 
were  spitted  at  the  two  ends  of  the  iron  rods.  The  crowd  of 
the  faithful  howled  with  enthusiasm  ;  to  that  you  must  join 
music  savage  enough  to  drive  one  mad.  When  the  sheik 
appeared  on  horseback,  my  gentlemen  laid  themselves  on  the 
ground  with  their  heads  down  ;  they  were  put  in  rows  like 
herrings,  and  heaped  close  to  one  another,  so  that  there  should 
be  no  interval  between  the  bodies.  A  man  walked  over  them 
to  see  if  the  platform  of  humanity  was  firm  and  close,  and  then 
to  clear  the  course,  a  hail,  a  tempest,  a  hurricane  of  whacks 
administered  by  eunuchs  began  to  rain  right  and  left  at  ran- 
dom, on  whatever  happened  to  be  there.  We  were  perched 
on  a  wall,  Sassetti  and  Joseph  at  our  feet.  We  stayed  there 
from  eleven  till  nearly  four.  It  was  very  cold,  and  we  had 
hardly  room  to  stir,  so  great  was  the  crowd,  and  so  small  the 
place  we  had  taken  ;  but  it  was  a  very  good  one  and  nothing 
escaped  us.  We  heard  the  palm  sticks  sound  dully  on  the 
tarbouches  like  the  drumsticks  on  drums  full  of  tow,  or  rather 
on  balls  of  wool.  This  is  exact.  The  sheik  advanced,  his  horse 
held  by  two  attendants,  and  himself  supported  by  two  others ; 
and  the  good  gentleman  needed  it.  His  hands  began  to 
tremble,  a  nervous  attack  seized  him,  and  at  the  end  of  his 
parade,  he  was  almost  unconscious.  His  horse  passed  at  a  slow 
walk  over  the  bodies  of  more  than  two  hundred  men  lying  flat 
on  their  stomachs.  As  for  how  many  died  of  it,  it  is  impossible 
to  know  anything  about  them  ;  the  crowd  pours  in  behind  the 
sheik  in  such  a  way,  when  once  he  has  passed,  that  it  is  no 
easier  to  know  what  has  become  of  these  unfortunates,  than  to 
make  out  the  fate  of  a  pin  thrown  into  a  torrent.  The  evening 
before  we  had  been  in  a  convent  of  dervishes,  where  we  had 
seen  some  of  them  fall  in  convulsions  by  dint  of  crying  Allah  ! 
These  are  gay  sights,  and  would   have   made   M.   de   Voltaire 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  109 

laugh  hugely.  What  reflections  would  he  not  have  made  on 
the  poor  human  mind  !  fanaticism  !  superstition  !  It  did  not 
make  me  laugh  at  all.  It  is  too  interesting  to  be  terrifying. 
What  is  most  terrible  is  their  music' 

On  the  sixth  of  February  the  friends  started  up  the  Nile  ; 
these  were  the  days  before  Cook  ;  travelling  was  slower  but 
more  independent,  and  the  crew  of  your  boat  were  always  at 
hand  to  afford  opportunities  for  enjoying  the  grotesque. 
Other  travellers  have  described  the  Nile,  with  its  shores  more 
like  ocean-strands  than  the  banks  of  a  river ;  its  crocodiles, 
storks  and  distant  chain  of  Arabian  mountains ;  though 
Flauberfs  descriptions  bear  his  own  distinctive  stamp — 
sudden  transitions  from  the  elevated  to  the  vulgar,  from  the 
sublime  to  the  obscene — there  is  not  much  with  which  we  are 
not  already  familiar.  On  the  way  down,  at  Wadi-Halfa,  the 
travellers  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  Governor  of  Ibrim, 
charged  with  collecting  the  taxes  in  the  whole  province. 

'  That  is  not  a  light  task.  It  is  executed  with  plentiful 
relays  of  thwacks,  arrests,  and  imprisonments.  We  came  down 
side  by  side  with  him  for  three  days.  A  villager  had  refused 
to  pay,  the  sheik  put  him  in  chains^  and  carried  him  off  in  his 
boat.  When  he  passed  near  us,  we  saw  the  poor  old  fellow  at 
the  bottom  of  the  boat,  bareheaded  and  duly  padlocked ;  on 
the  shore  men  and  women  followed  shouting.  That  did  not  in 
the  least  flurrj^  our  good  Turk,  who,  however,  thought  it  prudent 
not  to  let  us  get  out  of  sight,  hoping  that,  if  by  any  chance  he 
were  attacked,  we  had  some  good  guns  which  would  carry  far. 
He  came  to  make  calls  on  us,  while  descending  the  Nile  like 
ourselves.  Once  he  brought  us  a  present  of  a  small  sheep, 
which  was  distinctly  agreeable  to  us,  for  we  had  eaten  nothing 
but  chicken  and  turtle  doves  for  six  weeks.  We  had  conversa- 
tions with  this  excellent  fellow  upon  his  speciality,  that  is  to 
say,  he  gave  us  numbers  of  details  upon  the  method  of  killing 
a  man  with  whacks  in  a  fixed  number  of  blows  ;  they  explain 
all  that  to  you    very   elegantly,  laughing,  as  we   talk  of  the 


110  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

theatre,  and  carry  it  into  execution  very  placidly,  as  a  man 
smokes  a  pipe.' 

On  the  way  down  the  Nile  an  expedition  was  made  across 
the  desert  to  Kosseir ;  the  travellers  had  a  longing  to 
contemplate  the  Red  Sea.  On  this  expedition  an  event 
occurred,  which  is  not  mentioned  in  Flaubert's  correspondence, 
but  of  which  Ducamp  gives  the  following  account : — 

'  During  this  excursion  the  only  painful  incident  between 
Flaubert  and  myself  took  place ;  we  remained  forty-eight 
hours  without  speaking  to  one  another.  (The  evening  after 
their  departure  from  Kosseir  a  camel  carrying  all  their  supply 
of  water  had  fallen,  and  burst  all  the  skins.  They  were  two 
days  and  a  half  from  the  nearest  wells  on  the  return  journey  ; 
but  imprudently  instead  of  turning  back,  trusted  to  the  chance 
of  meeting  other  travellers,  and  borrowing.  In  this  they  were 
disappointed.)  After  suffering  thirst  for  thirty-six  hours,  while 
we  were  passing  through  a  defile,  a  furnace,  formed  of  granite 
rocks,  of  a  rose  colour,  covered  with  inscriptions,  Flaubert  said 
to  me  :  "  Do  you  remember  the  lemon  ices  that  one  eats  at 
Tortoni's  .'' "  I  made  a  sign  of  the  head  in  the  affirmative.  He 
resumed  :  "  Lemon  ice  is  a  superior  article  ;  admit  that  you 
would  not  be  annoyed  at  having  to  swallow  a  lemon  ice." 
Roughly  enough  I  replied  :  "  Yes."  After  an  intei-val  of  five 
minutes  :  "  Ah  !  the  lemon  ices  !  All  around  the  glass  there 
is  a  cloud,  which  is  like  a  white  jelly."  I  said  :  "  Suppose  we 
were  to  change  the  conversation  ?  "  He  replied  :  "  That  would 
be  better,  but  lemon  ice  is  worthy  of  being  celebrated  :  one 
fills  the  spoon,  it  makes  a  little  mound,  one  softly  squeezes  it 
between  the  tongue  and  the  palate  ;  it  melts  slowly,  coolly, 
deliciously  ;  it  bathes  the  uvula,  glides  over  the  tonsils,  descends 
into  the  gullet,  which  is  only  too  happy,  and  it  falls  into  the 
stomach  which  bursts  with  laughing,  so  delighted  is  it.  Between 
you  and  me  there  is  a  scarcity  of  lemon  ices  in  the  desert  of 
Kosseir !  " 

'  I  knew  Gustave.  I  knew  that  nothing  could  stop  him, 
when  he  was  a  prey  to  one  of  these  possessions,  and  I  made  no 
answer,  in  the  hope  that  my  silence  would  make  him  hold  his 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  111 

tongue.  It  was  no  use,  he  began  again,  and  seeing  that  I  said 
nothing,  he  began  to  shout :  "  Lemon  ice  !  Lemon  ice  !  "  I 
could  not  stand  it  any  longer ;  a  horrible  thought  shook  me. 
I  said  to  myself:  "I  shall  kill  him."  I  drove  my  dromedary 
on,  so  as  to  touch  him,  I  took  him  by  the  arm  :  "  Where  do  you 
wish  to  be,  in  front  or  behind  ?  "  He  replied :  "  I  will  go  in 
front."  I  stopped  my  dromedary,  and  when  our  little  troop 
was  two  hundred  yards  in  front  of  me,  I  resumed  my  march. 
In  the  evening  I  left  Flaubert  in  the  middle  of  our  men, 
and  I  went  and  prepared  my  bed  in  the  sand  more  than  two 
hundred  yards  from  the  camp.  At  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing we  started  at  the  same  distance  from  one  another,  and 
without  having  exchanged  a  word.  Towards  three  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  the  dromedaries  lengthened  their  pace,  and 
showed  signs  of  agitation;  water  was  not  far  off;  at  half  past 
three  we  were  at  Bir  Amber,  and  we  had  drunk.  Flaubert 
took  me  in  his  arms  and  said :  "I  thank  you  for  not  having 
blown  out  my  brains  with  your  gun ;  in  your  place  I  should 
not  have  resisted." ' 

Poor  Ducamp  suffered  in  a  less  violent  degree  during  their 
stay  at  Cairo  from  a  French  doctor  living  there,  who  wrote 
execrable  tragedies.  The  man''s  vanity  enraptured  Flaubert, 
who  was  never  tired  of  complimenting  him  on  his  poems, 
and  encouraging  him  to  recite  them.  The  unfortunate 
Ducamp  had  to  listen  to  it  all.  But  there  were  other  jokes, 
which  both  enjoyed  equally.  Writing  to  his  mother  from 
near  Cairo  on  the  return  journey,  Flaubert  says  : — 

*  As  for  Maxime  and  myself,  we  were  never  less  bored  on 
the  boat,  although  we  have  nothing  more  to  do  or  see.  We 
have  books,  and  we  don't  read.  No  more  do  we  write.  We 
pass  nearly  all  our  time  in  doing  the  "  sheicks,"  that  is  to  say 
the  old  men ;  (the  sheick  is  the  old  gentleman,  foolish,  retired, 
respected,  in  a  very  good  position,  behind  the  age) ;  and  in 
asking  one  another  questions  in  the  style  of  the  same : 

'  "  And  is  there  a  little  society  in  the  towns  that  you  passed 
through  ?     Had  you  any  club  where  the  papers  are  read  ? " 


112     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  "  Is  the  railway  movement  being  felt  at  all  ?  Is  there  any 
main  line  ? " 

*  "  And  as  I  hope,  God  be  thanked,  socialist  doctrines  have  not 
yet  penetrated  to  those  shores  ? " 

' "  Is  there  at  least  good  wine  ?  Have  you  any  celebrated 
vintages  ?  " 

'  "  Are  the  ladies  agreeable  ?  " 

' "  Are  there  any  good  cafes  ?  Do  the  shop  ladies  assume 
an  expensive  style  ?  " 

'  All  this  in  a  trembling  voice,  and  with  an  imbecile  air. 
From  the  sheick  simple  we  arrived  at  the  double  sheick,  that 
is  to  say  at  dialogue.  Thereupon  dialogues  on  everything  that 
happens  in  the  world,  and  with  good  old  crusted  opinions. 
Then  the  sheick  has  aged,  and  has  become  the  old  palsied 
man,  riddled  with  infirmities,  and  talking  endlessly  of  his  meals 
and  his  digestion.  Here  Maxime  has  developed  a  great  talent 
for  mimicry.  He  has  a  nephew  who  is  a  magistrate's  clerk,  a 
maid  who  is  called  Marianne.  He  is  called  pere  Etienne,  me 
he  calls  Quarafon  (Juggins — carafe).  The  name  "  Quarafon  " 
is  sublime. 

'  We  walk  about  mutually  supporting  one  another  and  slob- 
bering. He  tells  me  a  hundred  times  a  day  to  write  to  his 
nephew  the  clerk  to  tell  him  to  come  because  "  he  does  not  feel 
well,"  and  as  we  are  overdone  with  chicken,  whenever  I  bewail 
myself,  he  says  to  me  :  "  Come,  Quarafon,  cheer  up,  you  shall 
have  a  good  chicken  for  dinner  :  I  told  Marianne  to  do  one  for 
you."  In  the  evening  it  takes  us  half  an  hour  to  get  to  bed. 
We  moan  and  groan  and  turn  ourselves  heavily  like  people 
overwhelmed  with  rheumatism.  "  Come  then,  good  night,  my 
friend,  good  night."  A  few  days  ago  I  was  just  getting  to 
sleep  when  I  felt  a  weight  pressing  on  my  back,  it  was  pere 
Etienne,  who  was  coming  to  sleep  with  me,  because  he  was 
afraid  of  being  all  alone  in  his  own  bed.  Sometimes,  too,  there 
are  hot  disputes,  wherein  pere  Etienne  takes  advantage  of  his 
superiority  in  the  matter  of  age,  and  Quarafon  declares  that  he 
will  take  the  coach  next  week.' 

Avoiding  the  overland  route  to  Syria  as  unnecessarily 
dull  and   long,  the  travellers  went  by  sea  to  Beyrout  and 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT     113 

thence  to  Jerusalem.  Flaubert  experienced  the  usual  dis- 
illusionment with  regard  to  the  '  holy  places/  but  was 
enraptured  with  the  scenery. 

Writing  to  Bouilhet  from  Damascus,  he  discusses  at  great 
length  many  literary  questions.  Among  other  things,  he 
says  :— 

'  You  do  well  to  think  of  the  Dictionary  of  Accepted  Opinions. 
That  book,  done  completely,  and  preceded  by  a  good  preface, 
in  which  one  would  point  out  how  the  work  has  been  written 
with  the  object  of  attaching  the  public  to  tradition,  order, 
general  conventionalities,  and  arranged  in  such  a  way  that  the 
reader  would  not  know  whether  you  were  laughing  at  him  or 
not,  would  perhaps  be  a  strange  book,  and  capable  of  succeed- 
ing, for  it  would  be  all  real. 

*  I  read  at  Jerusalem  a  Socialist  book  {Essay  on  Positive 
Philosophy,  by  Auguste  Comte).  It  was  lent  to  me  by  a  wild 
Catholic  who  insisted  by  main  force  that  I  should  read  it  in 
order  to  see,  etc.  etc.  I  turned  over  some  pages  of  it ;  it  is 
consumingly  stupid,  and  indeed  I  was  not  mistaken.  There 
are  in  it  immense  mines  of  comedy,  quite  a  California  of  the 
grotesque.  There  is  perhaps  something  else  as  well.  That 
may  be.  One  of  the  first  studies  to  which  I  shall  betake  myself 
on  my  return,  will  certainly  be  that  of  all  these  deplorable 
Utopias,  which  agitate  our  society,  and  threaten  to  cover  it 
with  ruins.  Why  not  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  conditions 
which  are  submitted  to  us  ?  They  are  as  good  as  any  other ;  to 
take  things  impartially,  few  have  been  more  fertile.  Folly 
consists  in  the  wish  for  finality.  We  say  to  ourselves  :  "  But 
our  foundation  is  not  fixed,  which  of  the  two  will  be  right .'' " 
I  see  a  past  in  ruins,  and  a  future  in  germs,  the  one  is  too 
old,  the  other  is  too  young.  All  is  confused.  But  that  is 
not  understanding  the  twilight.  That  is  to  wish  for  mid- 
night or  midday  only.  What  does  the  face  that  to-morrow 
will  bear,  matter ;  we  only  see  the  face  of  to-day.  It  cuts 
hideous  mugs  truly,  and  therefore  enters  the  better  into 
romanticism. 

*  When  has  the  middle-class  man  been  more  gigantic  than 
now  ?     What  is  Moliere's  Bourgeois  in  comparison  with  him  ? 

H 


114  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

M.  Jourdain  does  not  come  up  to  the  level  of  the  first  tradesman 
you  meet  in  the  street ;  and  the  envious  phiz  of  the  artisan  ? 
and  the  pushing  young  man  ?  and  the  magistrate  !  And  all 
that  is  fermenting  in  fools'  brains,  and  boiling  in  the  hearts  of 
sharpers  ! 

'  Yes,  stupidity  consists  in  wishing  to  be  final.  We  are  a 
thread,  and  we  wish  to  know  the  woof.  That  is  the  reason  of 
these  eternal  discussions  on  the  decay  of  art.  People  spend 
their  time  now  in  saying  :  "  We  are  quite  done,  here  we  are 
at  the  last  limit,  etc.  etc.."  What  strong  mind  has  ever  brought 
things  to  an  end  }  To  begin  with,  Homer  .''  Let  us  enjoy  the 
picture,  it  is  good,  too.' 

At  Nazareth  Flaubert  went  to  see  the  lepers,  and  many 
years  later  turned  what  he  saw  there  to  good  account  in 
St.  Julian  the  Hospitable. 

At  this  period  plans  were  changed  ;  it  had  been  originally 
proposed  to  continue  the  journey  yet  further  East,  to  visit 
Mesopotamia,  Persia,  possibly  India;  but  on  the  return 
visit  to  Beyrout,  Ducamp  received  a  letter  from  Mrae. 
Flaubert  imploring  him  to  return,  as  also  did  her  son. 
Ducamp,  to  whom  the  further  journey  meant  much, 
most  unselfishly  sacrificed  himself  to  the  wishes  of  the 
mother  and  the  son  ;  though  he  felt  with  justice  that  they 
should  have  counted  the  cost  of  the  longer  tour  to  begin 
with.  The  moment  his  feet  were  turned  homewards, 
Flaubert  began  to  regret  the  places  that  he  should  never 
see. 

In  Syria  Flaubert  found  an  unheard-of  collection  of  all 
the  old  religions ;  people  in  Lebanon  still  adoring  the  cedars 
as  in  the  days  of  the  prophets.  With  the  cedars  themselves 
he  was  disappointed, — they  were  too  old  and  too  few  ;  but  the 
scenery  was  as  fine  as  the  I*yrenees,  and  under  an  Oriental 
sun. 

There  lived  in  close  intimacy  with  the  Flaubert  family 
'  Uncle  Parain."*     He  had  married  the  sister  of  Dr.  Flaubert, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  115 

and  therefore  was  not  a  blood  relation.  For  Gustave  he  had 
a  strong  love,  and  deep  admiration,  making  the  young  man 
his  friend,  as  the  following  extracts  from  a  letter  written 
during  quarantine  at  Rhodes  abundantly  prove  : — 

'You  are  very  wrong,  my  good  old  friend,  not  to  write  to  me 
oftener,  for  I  assure  you  that  your  letters  are  real  "days  out" 
for  me.  The  last  made  me  laugh  heartily,  and  what  you  tell 
me  of  all  your  acquaintances  has  amused  me  not  a  little.  That 
would  be  something  to  talk  over  at  full  length  by  the  fireside, 
with  our  noses  under  the  chimney-piece  and  our  feet  in  our 
shppers.  That  is  what  I  propose  to  myself  on  my  return. 
What  a  spree  we  will  give  ourselves  with  the  bellows  !  It  will 
be  necessary  to  put  a  spring  to  them. 

'  It  seems  that  the  young  Bouilhet  betakes  himself  somewhat 
to  immorality  in  my  absence.  You  see  him  too  often.  You 
demoralise  that  young  man.  If  I  were  his  mother,  I  should 
forbid  him  your  society.  There  is  nothing  so  bad  for  youth  as 
the  company  of  debauched  old  men.  Nevei'theless  continue, 
my  good  friends,  to  drink  a  glass  to  my  health  when  you  meet. 
Even  fuddle  yourselves  in  my  honour.  I  pardon  you  by  antici- 
pation.' 

'  Have  you  ever  reflected,  dear  old  comrade,  on  all  the  serenity 
of  fools  .''  Stupidity  is  something  unshakeable,  nothing  attacks 
it,  without  being  crushed  upon  it.  It  is  of  the  nature  of 
granite,  hard  and  resistant.  At  Alexandria  one  Thompson,  of 
Sunderland  has  written  his  name  in  letters  six  feet  high  on 
Pompey's  Pillar.  It  can  be  read  three  quarters  of  a  mile  off. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  seeing  the  column  without  seeing 
the  name  of  Thompson,  and  consequently,  without  thinking  of 
Thompson.  This  idiot  has  embodied  himself  in  the  monument, 
and  perpetuates  himself  with  it.  What  do  I  say  .>  He 
annihilates  it  under  the  splendour  of  his  majestic  letters.  Is 
it  not  coining  it  rather  strong  to  force  future  travellers  to 
think  of  you,  and  remember  you  ?  All  fools  are  more  or  less 
Thompsons  of  Sunderland.  In  the  course  of  one's  life,  how 
many  of  them  one  meets  in  its  most  beautiful  places,  on 
its  purest  angles  }  And  then  it  is  they  who  always  annihilate 
us ;  they  are  so  numerous,  so  happy,  they  return  so  often,  they 


116  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

are  so  healthy.  Travelling  one  meets  numbers  of  them,  and 
we  have  ah-eady  a  fine  collection  in  our  memories  ;  but  as  they 
pass  quickly  they  simply  amuse  us.  It  is  not  so  in  ordinaiy 
life,  when  they  end  by  making  you  savage.' 

At  Constantinople  Flaubert  received  a  letter  from  his 
mother  concerning  the  little  niece,  who  was  now  coming  to 
an  age  when  her  education  demanded  forethought.  Gustave''s 
reply  is  worth  noting : — 

'There  are  many  things  in  the  world,  poor  old  woman,  of 
■which  you  in  your  perfect  honesty  are  ignorant.  I  who  am 
becoming  a  very  great  moralist,  and  who  besides  have  always 
plunged  myself  headlong  into  this  kind  of  study,  have  lifted 
not  a  few  curtain-corners  which  concealed  countless  turpitudes. 
Women  are  taught  to  lie  in  an  infamous  fashion.  Their  appren- 
ticeship lasts  all  their  life  from  the  first  lady's  maid  they  are 
given,  to  the  last  lover  who  comes  upon  them ;  each  and  all 
take  pains  to  make  them  base,  and  then  cry  out  against  them  ; 
puritanism,  prudery,  bigotry,  the  system  of  seclusion,  of  narrow- 
ness, have  spoiled  their  nature,  and  destroy  the  most  charming 
creations  of  God  in  their  bloom.  I  fear  the  moral  corset — that 
is  all.  First  impressions  are  not  effaced,  you  know.  We  carry 
our  past  with  us ;  the  whole  of  our  life  we  smell  of  the  nurse. 
When  I  analyse  myself  I  find  still  fresh  in  me,  and  with  all 
their  influences  (modified,  it  is  true,  by  their  mutual  combin- 
ation), the  places  of  pere  Langlois,  of  pere  Mignot,  of  Don 
Quixote,  and  my  childhood's  reveries  in  the  garden  beside 
the  window  of  the  lecture  room.  In  short :  get  some  one  to 
teach  her  English,  and  the  first  general  elements.  Give  all 
the  attention  that  you  can  to  that  yourself,  and  watch  over  the 
character  and  good  sense  (I  give  the  word  its  widest  meaning) 
of  the  person  you  select.' 

There  are  a  large  number  of  people  whose  interest  in  their 
acquaintance  begins  and  ends  with  projects  matrimonial,  and 
marriage  is  indeed  an  important  part  of  life  ;  it  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  whole  of  life.     Flauberfs  views  on  the  subject  at 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  117 

this  period,  December  1850,  were  as  follows.      He  is  writing 
to  his  mother  : — 

'  And  when  is  my  wedding  to  be  ?  When  ?  You  ask  me  that 
in  connection  with  Ernest's  marriage.  Never,  I  hope.  So  far  as 
a  man  can  answer  for  what  he  will  do,  I  reply  here  in  the  nega- 
tive. The  contact  of  the  world,  with  which  I  have  rubbed 
shoulders  pretty  closely  for  the  last  fourteen  months,  makes 
me  retire  further  and  further  into  my  shell.  Uncle  Parain  is 
mistaken  when  he  affirms  that  travelling  changes  people ;  as 
for  me,  such  as  I  started,  such  I  return,  only  with  some  hairs 
fewer  on  the  outside  of  my  head,  and  many  more  landscapes 
inside.  That  is  all !  As  for  my  moral  dispositions,  I  keep  the 
same  till  further  orders  ;  and  then,  if  it  were  necessary  to  reveal 
the  very  bottom  of  my  thoughts,  and  if  the  expression  were 
not  in  appearance  too  presumptuous,  I  should  say,  that  I  am 
too  old  to  change.  I  have  passed  the  age.  When  a  man  has 
lived,  as  I  have,  an  inner  life  full  of  turbulent  analysis,  and 
repressed  impulses,  when  he  has  thus  in  turn  excited  and 
calmed  himself,  and  when  he  has  spent  his  whole  youth  in 
making  his  soul  wheel  and  turn,  as  a  rider  his  horse,  which  he 
forces  with  the  spur  to  gallop  across  the  fields,  to  walk  slowly, 
to  jump  the  ditches,  to  trot,  to  canter,  the  whole  simply  to 
amuse  himself,  and  learn  more ;  well,  I  would  say,  if  he  has  not 
broken  his  neck  at  the  start,  there  is  a  very  good  chance  that 
he  will  not  break  it  later  on.  I  too,  I  am  established,  in  the 
sense  that  I  have  found  my  position,  a  centre  of  gravity.  I  do 
not  presume  that  any  internal  shock  can  make  me  change  my 
place  and  fall  on  the  ground.  Marriage  would  be  for  me  a 
horrible  apostasy.  Alfred's  death  has  not  effaced  the  recol- 
lection of  the  irritation  that  his  marriage  caused  me.  It  was 
what  the  news  of  a  great  scandal  caused  by  a  bishop  would  be 
to  the  devout.  When  a  man  wishes,  be  he  small  or  great,  to 
concern  himself  with  the  works  of  God,  he  must  begin,  if  only 
from  considerations  of  health,  by  putting  himself  in  a  position 
in  which  he  cannot  be  duped  by  them.  You  may  paint  a 
picture  of  wine,  love,  women,  glory,  on  condition,  my  good 
friend,  that  you  are  neither  a  drunkard,  nor  a  lover,  nor  a 
husband,  nor  a  soldier-boy.     When  a  man  is  mixed  with  life,  he 


118     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

sees  it  all,  he  suffers  too  much  from  it,  or  enjoys  it  too  much. 
In  my  opinion  the  artist  is  a  monstrosity,  something  outside 
nature,  all  the  misfortunes  with  which  Providence  overwhelms 
him,  come  to  him  from  his  persistence  in  denying  this  axiom ; 
he  suffers  from  it,  and  makes  others  suffer.  On  that  point 
question  women  who  have  loved  poets,  and  men  who  have  loved 
actresses.  Now  (and  this  is  the  conclusion)  I  am  resigned  to 
living,  as  I  have  lived,  alone  with  a  crowd  of  great  men,  who 
take  the  place  of  a  club  to  me,  with  my  bear-skin,  being  a  bear 
myself,  etc.  I  don't  care  a  snap  for  the  world,  the  future,  the 
what-will-people-say,  for  any  establishment  whatever,  even  for 
a  literary  reputation,  which  has  made  me  pass  so  many  sleepless 
nights  in  dreaming  before  now.  That  is  what  I  am,  that  is  my 
character. 

'  If,  for  instance,  I  know  what  has  made  me  reel  off  this 
couple  of  pages,  poor  dear  old  woman,  may  the  devil  fly  away 
with  me  !  No,  no— when  I  think  of  your  good  face,  so  sad,  so 
loving,  of  the  pleasure  that  I  have  in  living  with  you,  so  full  of 
calm,  so  delightful,  so  grave,  I  see  clearly  that  I  shall  never 
love  another  woman,  as  I  love  you.  There — you  will  never 
have  a  rival ;  don't  be  afraid  !  The  senses,  a  passing  fancy, 
will  not  take  the  place  of  that  which  remains  enclosed  in  the 
recesses  of  a  triple  sanctuary.  They  may  perhaps  get  as  far  as 
the  threshold  of  the  temple,  but  they  will  never  enter  in.' 

Thereupon  follows  a  rather  unkind  disquisition  on  poor 
Ernest  Chevalier,  who  is  on  the  point  of  connnitting  the 
crime  of  matrimony.  When  his  friends  married,  Flaubert 
lost  his  head ;  the  subject  was  as  annoying  to  him  as  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  ;  and  he  was  apt  to  express  himself  in 
language  whose  strength  and  unfairness  were  alike  worthy 
of  that  austere  virgin. 

After  leaving  Constantinople,  Flaubert  writes  to 
Bouilhet : — 

*  The  East  will  soon  be  nothing  but  a  question  of  sun.  At 
Constantinople  most  of  the  men  are  dressed  in  the  European 
fashion,  operas  are  played,  there  are  reading  rooms,  milliners' 
shops,    etc,      A   hundred   years   lience   the    harem,   gradually 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  119 

invaded  by  intercourse  with  Prankish  ladies,  will  crumble  to  dust 
of  itself  under  the  leading  article  and  the  comic  opera.  .  .  .  Soon 
the  veil,  already  slighter  and  slighter,  will  pass  from  the  faces 
of  the  women,  and  with  it  Moslemism  will  fly  away  altogether. 
The  number  of  pilgrims  to  Mecca  diminishes  day  by  day ;  the 
ulemas  fuddle  themselves  like  vergers.  Voltaire  is  talked  of! 
Everything  here  is  breaking  up,  as  with  us.  He  who  lives 
longest  will  laugh  most ! ' 

At  Athens  the  following  scene  occurred  : — 

'  The  other  day  we  had  beside  us  at  table  a  band  of  midship- 
men from  the  English  navy,  from  nine  to  fourteen  years  old,  who 
came  calmly,  like  grown  men,  to  give  themselves  a  spree  at  the 
hotel  ;  with  their  uniforms  too  big  for  them  there  could  be 
nothing  more  amusing,  more  exquisite.  The  smallest,  sitting 
by  Maxime,  and  who  was  not  higher  than  the  table,  lost  his 
long  nose  in  his  plate.  These  gentlemen  toasted  one  another 
with  the  dignity  of  Lords.  They  smoked  cigars  and  drank 
Marsala.  My  face  interested  them  much ;  they  took  me  for  a 
Turk.  They  told  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  that  they  were 
very  soriy  to  be  going  away  the  next  day,  as  otherwise  they 
would  have  come  to  pay  me  a  visit,  to  have  a  talk  with  me.' 

Middies  of  nine  years  old  are  rather  a  startling  pheno- 
menon ;  but  this  was  in  the  pre-Britannia  days. 

As  Flaubert  approached  home,  the  practice  of  moralising 
grew  upon  him.  He  says,  in  writing  to  his  mother  from 
Patras  : — 

'  The  saddest  thing  of  all  is  one  day  to  become  aware  of  the 
collapse  of  an  old  friendship.  Thanks  to  former  sympathies,  one 
had  faith  in  a  community  of  sentiment,  which  no  longer  exists 
One  used  to  say  to  oneself :  "  When  I  need  him,  he  will  come 
to  help  me."  One  calls,  the  friendly  ear  no  longer  understands 
your  language.  From  one  man  to  another,  from  one  woman  to 
another  woman,  from  heart  to  heart,  what  gulfs  !  The  distance 
from  one  continent  to  another  is  nothing  in  comparison.  Do  I 
want  you  to  throw  yourself  into  the  water  if  I  fall  in .''  Or  to 
defend  me  against  assassins .''  I  can  swim,  and  there  are  no 
assassins  now.     Sacrifices  are  not  what  the  heart  demands,  but 


120  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

confidences.  I  ask  you  to  love  as  I  love,  to  weep  as  I  weep, 
and  over  the  same  things,  to  feel  as  I  feel,  that  is  all.  There  is 
nothing  more  futile  than  those  heroic  friendships,  which  require 
events  to  prove  them.  The  difficulty  is  to  find  someone  who 
does  not  torture  your  nerves  in  the  ordinary  occurrences  of  life.' 

Perhaps  Maxime  Ducanip  might  have  found  something  to 
say  on  this  subject,  for — 

'  I  am  now  working  hard  at  doing  the  howling  dervish. 
Francis  (the  dragoman)  gives  me  lessons  as  we  ride.  Maxime 
is  nearly  bored  to  death  ;  none  the  less  I  go  on.  One  evening 
I  literally  got  broken  winded  over  it,  and  in  the  house  where 
we  were  sleeping,  everybody  came  to  the  door  to  see  what  was 
the  matter.  The  sheick  still  goes  on  ;  it  is  a  healthy  creation, 
which  time  does  not  exhaust.' 

Maxime,  however,  had  his  turn  every  now  and  then  : — 

'  As  for  me,  my  hair  is  going  ;  when  you  see  me  again  I  shall 
be  wearing  a  skull-cap ;  I  shall  have  the  baldness  of  the  office 
clerk,  of  the  worn-out  notary,  of  all  that  is  most  inane  in  the 
way  of  premature  senility.  I  am  quite  miserable  over  it. 
Maxime  laughs  at  me,  he  may  be  right.  It  is  a  feminine  senti- 
ment, unworthy  of  a  man,  and  a  republican,  I  know  ;  but  I  feel  in 
this  the  first  symptom  of  a  decadence  which  humiliates  me,  and 
of  which  I  am  only  too  well  awai-e.  I  am  getting  fat.  I  am  putting 
on  a  stomach,  and  beginning  to  be  loathsome.  Perhaps  soon  I 
shall  be  regretting  my  youth,  and  like  Beranger's  grandmother, 
my  lost  time.  Where  are  ye,  blooming  locks  of  my  eighteen 
years,  ye  who  fell  upon  my  shoulders  with  such  hope,  such  pride  .'' ' 

By  the  time  that  Flaubert  reached  Rome,  he  had  got 
over  his  irritation  at  Ernest's  marriage,  and  wrote  him  a 
pleasant  enough  letter  of  congratulation  : — 

'  I  think  that  you  have  taken  the  right  road,  be  it  said 
between  ourselves,  and  without  complimenting  you,  and  that 
I — well,  not  that  I  have  taken  the  wrong  road,  but  that  the 
wrong  road  has  taken  me  (my  philosophical  opinions  not  permit- 
ting me,  as  the  "  gar9on "  would  say,  to  recognise  that  there 
was  any  liberty  or  freedom  of  choice  in  the  matter).  .  .  . 

'  Ah,  when  we  Avere  howling  on  that  poor  billiard  table  at  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT     121 

Infirmary  converted  into  a  stage  of  which  you  provided  the 
scenery,  who  would  have  told  us  that  to-day  I  should  be  at 
Rome,  that  I  should  be  coming  out  of  St.  Peter's  at  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon^  and  that  I  should  write  to  you  ?  Who  would 
further  have  told  us  that  I  should  be  bald,  for  you  will  see  me 
again  with  my  head  nearly  bare  ?  In  that  I  resemble  Julius 
Ceesar  and  a  pumpkin,  for  I  have  become  enormously  fat  in  the 
East.  .  .  .  Whatever  may  happen  to  you  hereafter,  remember, 
dear  old  man,  that  you  have  over  there  on  the  edge  of  the 
water,  between  the  hillside  and  the  river,  an  ear  always  open  to 
confidences,  a  friendly  hand  that  would  not  fail  you,  and  a 
devotion  which  may  be  old,  but  is  not  aged.' 

Rome  impressed  Flaubert,  as  it  has  impressed  many 
others.  We  go  there  most  of  us  expecting  to  walk  where 
Horace  walked,  to  stroll  under  the  same  porticos,  to  saunter 
in  the  halls  of  the  same  baths,  possibly  to  stroll  in  the 
Campus  Martius  and  watch  the  young  men  playing  ball. 
We  find  that  the  Rome  of  Cicero,  of  Horace,  of  Virgil,  even 
of  Domitian,  Aurelian,  is  the  property  of  the  antiquary,  and 
not  of  the  ordinary  traveller.  Except  the  Pantheon,  there 
are  no  buildings  at  Rome  which  we  see  at  all  as  the  subjects 
of  Augustus  saw  them,  and  even  that,  how  changed  !  A 
walk  along  the  Roman  Wall  in  England  tells  us  as  much,  if 
not  more,  of  imperial  Rome  than  a  drive  along  the  Via 
Appia.  On  the  other  hand,  mediaeval  Rome — the  Rome  of 
the  Popes,  the  Rome  of  the  Renaissance — meets  us  at  every 
turn  ;  though  even  that  is  much  shorn  of  its  splendours 
since  1870.  Two  things  attracted  Flaubert  at  Rome,  the 
statuary  and  the  pictures, — the  masterpieces  of  ancient  art, 
and  of  the  age  of  the  Renaissance.  St  Peter*'s  seemed  to 
him  to  have  the  cold  unsympathetic  magnificence  of  a  new 
tomb  ;  but  he  admits  that  the  Parthenon  had  spoiled  him 
for  most  things  in  the  Avay  of  building. 

By  May  he  was  again  home.  In  the  summer  the  family 
visited  England  ;  it  was  the  year  of  the  first  Exhibition. 


CHAPTER  XI 

LIFE    AT    CROISSET MADAME    LOUISE    COLET 

FiiOM  the  autumn  of  1851  to  his  death  in  the  spring  of  1880 
Flaubert's  hfe  was  spent  ahnost  without  interruption  at 
Croisset,  in  the  laborious  construction  of  his  books.  At  the 
time  of  the  publication  of  Madame  Bovary  he  passed  some 
months  in  Paris,  and  afterwards  occasionally  resided  there 
for  the  winter  months,  especially  Avhen  needing  access  to 
libraries  more  complete  than  those  of  Rouen,  or  when  the 
plays  of  Louis  Bouilhet  were  being  rehearsed.  In  1860  he 
again  made  a  short  visit  to  the  East,  this  time  to  the  site 
of  ancient  Carthage,  in  order  to  fix  certain  details  for 
Salammbo.  In  1870-71  he  abandoned  his  house  to  the 
Prussians,  who  were  quartered  on  him  ;  twice  he  accompanied 
his  mother  to  Vichy.  These  were  the  only  serious  inter- 
ruptions to  the  secluded  life  of  literary  labour  spent  in  the 
study  at  Croisset. 

Few  men  of  letters  have  been  so  fortunate  as  Flaubert  in 
their  domestic  circumstances  ;  his  father  had  left  his  widow 
and  children  the  possession  of  a  moderate  fortune ;  his 
mother  lived  only  to  secure  to  her  adored  son  the  repose 
which  was  absolutely  necessary  to  enable  him  to  realise  his 
artistic  ideals. 

To  the  ordinary  irritability  of  the  artist,  Flaubert  added 
the  special  weakness  left  by  the  breakdown  of  his  nervous 

122 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  123 

system  in  1846.  At  times  his  power  of  hearing  became  a 
positive  torture  to  him,  and  his  extremely  sensitive  ear  had 
in  all  probability  no  small  share  in  producing  the  fastidious- 
ness M'hich  made  composition  in  his  case  so  laborious. 

Madame  Caroline  Commanville,  Flaubert's  niece,  whose 
mother  died,  as  we  have  seen,  at  her  birth,  gives  us  some 
very  pleasant  reminiscences  of  her  uncle's  home  life  at  Croisset. 
She  describes  the  house,  built  originally  somewhere  about 
1650  as  a  country  residence  for  the  monks  of  St.  Ouen, 
restored  in  extremely  bad  taste  in  accordance  Avith  the 
artistic  prejudices  of  the  Fii-st  Empire  ;  the  garden  sloping 
down  to  the  Seine,  its  terraces,  its  avenue  of  limes,  the  tulip- 
tree  opposite  the  study  windows.  The  Abbe  Prevost  had, 
for  a  long  period,  been  the  guest  of  the  monks  of  St.  Ouen, 
and  Flaubert  flattered  himself  with  the  idea  that  Manon 
Lescaut  might  have  been  written  at  Croisset. 

'The  habits  of  the  house  were  subordinated  to  my  uncle's 
tastes,  my  grandmother  having,  so  to  say,  no  personal  life  ;  she 
lived  in  the  happiness  of  her  family.  Her  affection  was  alarmed 
by  the  smallest  symptom  of  ill-health,  which  she  imagined  she 
discovered  in  her  son  ;  her  aim  was  to  envelope  him  in  an 
atmosphere  of  perfect  calm.  In  the  morning  it  was  forbidden 
to  make  the  smallest  noise  ;  towards  ten  o'clock  there  was  a 
violent  ring  ;  my  uncle's  room  was  entered,  and  then  for  the 
first  time  everyone  seemed  to  wake.  The  servant  brought  the 
letters  and  papers,  put  on  the  table  at  the  bedside  a  big  glass  of 
water,  very  cold,  and  a  pipe  ready  filled  ;  he  then  drew  the 
curtains,  and  the  light  poured  in.  My  uncle  took  up  his  letters, 
looked  at  the  address,  but  rarely  opened  any  of  them  before 
having  taken  several  puffs  from  his  pipe,  then,  still  reading,  he 
tapped  at  the  partition  to  call  his  mother,  who  immediately  ran 
in  to  sit  by  his  bed  till  he  got  up. 

'  He  dressed  slowly,  sometimes  stopping  to  go  and  read  over 
again  some  passage  in  his  compositions  that  interested  him. 
Though  far  from  complicated  his  dress  was  never  careless,  and 
his  ideas  of  cleanliness  were  fastidious. 


lU  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  At  eleven  o'clock  he  came  down  to  lunch,  where  my  grand- 
mother, uncle  Parain,  the  governess  and  myself  were  already 
assembled.  We  were  all  extremely  fond  of  Uncle  Parain ;  he 
spent  a  great  part  of  the  year  with  us.  At  this  time  (1852)  my 
uncle  ate  little,  especially  in  the  morning,  believing  that  a  full 
diet  produces  dullness  and  indisposition  to  work ;  hardly  ever 
any  meat ;  eggs,  vegetables,  a  piece  of  cheese,  or  fruit,  and  a 
cup  of  cold  chocolate.  At  dessert,  he  used  to  light  his  pipe,  a 
little  clay  pipe,  get  up  and  go  into  the  garden,  whither  we 
followed  him.  His  favourite  walk  was  the  terrace  under  the 
rocks,  shaded  on  one  side  by  old  lime  trees  cut  straight  like  a 
great  wall.  It  led  to  a  little  summerhouse  in  the  style  of 
Louis  XV.,  whose  windows  looked  upon  the  Seine.  We  rarely 
went  to  the  summerhouse  after  lunch.  Avoiding  the  midday 
sun,  we  used  to  climb  to  a  spot  called  "  The  Mercury,"  because 
of  a  statue  of  that  god,  by  which  it  was  once  ornamented ;  it 
was  a  second  avenue  situated  above  the  terrace,  and  to  which  a 
charming  path  led,  deeply  shaded  ;  old  yew  trees  in  strange 
shapes  grew  from  the  rocks,  showing  the  bare  roots,  and  their 
ruinous  trunks.  Quite  at  the  top  of  the  path  on  a  sort  of 
circular  space,  a  bench  was  hidden  under  chestnut  trees. 
Through  their  branches  the  quiet  water  was  seen,  and  large 
bits  of  sky  above,  from  time  to  time  a  cloud  rapidly  disappearing. 
It  was  the  smoke  of  a  steam-boat ;  immediately  appeared 
between  the  tall  stems  of  the  trees  the  pointed  masts  of  ships 
being  towed  up  to  Rouen  ;  often  their  number  was  seven  or 
nine.  Nothing  could  be  more  majestic  and  beautiful  than 
these  processions  of  floating  houses,  which  spoke  to  you  of 
distant  lands.  Towards  one  o'clock  a  shrill  whistle  was  heard ; 
it  was  the  "  steamer,"  as  the  country  folks  say.  Three  times  a 
day  this  boat  makes  the  passage  from  Rouen  to  La  Bouille. 

'  The  signal  for  departure  had  been  given. 

' "  Come,"  my  uncle  would  say,  "come  to  lessons,  my  Caro,"  and 
he,  taking  me  by  the  hand,  we  would  both  go  into  his  large 
study,  where  the  outer  blinds,  carefully  kept  closed,  had  not 
allowed  the  heat  to  penetrate ;  it  was  nice  there,  one  breathed 
a  scent  of  oriental  beads  mixed  with  tliat  of  tobacco,  and  a 
trace  of  perfumes  coming  through  the  half  open  door  of  the 
dressing  room.     At  one  bound  I  used  to  fling  myself  on  a  great 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  125 

white  bear-skin  which  I  worshipped :  I  used  to  cover  its  great 
head  with  kisses.  My  uncle  during  this  time  would  put  his 
pipe  away  on  the  chimney  piece,  select  another,  fill  it,  light  it, 
then  seat  himself  on  a  green  leather  arm-chair  at  the  other  end 
of  the  room ;  he  used  to  cross  one  leg  over  the  other,  lean  back, 
take  a  file,  and  polish  his  nails.  "  Let  us  see — are  you  there  } 
Well,  what  do  you  remember  from  yesterday  ?  "■ — "  Oh,  I  know 
the  stoiy  of  Pelopidas  and  Epaminondas  quite  well."  "Tell  me 
then."  I  would  begin,  then  naturally  get  confused,  or  perhaps 
I  had  forgotten.  "I  will  tell  it  you  again."  I  drew  near] him, 
and  seated  in  front  of  him  on  a  low  chair,  or  on  the  divan,  I 
used  to  listen  with  palpitating  interest  to  the  stories,  which  he 
made  so  amusing  for  me. 

'  In  this  way  he  taught  me  the  whole  of  ancient  history, 
bringing  the  facts  into  relation  with  one  another ;  making 
reflections  within  my  grasp,  but  always  preserving  truth,  depth, 
in  his  observations ;  mature  minds  might  have  listened  without 
discovering  anything  childish  in  his  instruction.  I  would 
sometimes  stop  him  to  ask  him:  "Was  he  good.''" — and  this 
question  applied  to  such  pei'sons  as  Cambyses,  Alexander,  or 
Alcibiades,  caused  him  some  embaiTassment.  "  Good  .  .  .  come, 
these  were  not  very  particular  gentlemen,  what  have  you  to  do 
with  that  ? "  But  I  was  not  satisfied,  and  I  thought  that  my 
"  old  man  "  as  I  called  him,  ought  to  have  known  even  the  veiy 
smallest  details  of  the  lives  of  the  persons  about  whom  he  was 
talking  to  me. 

'  The  history  lesson  finished,  we  passed  to  geography.  He 
would  never  have  permitted  me  to  learn  from  a  book.  "  Images, 
as  much  as  possible,"  he  would  say,  "  that  is  the  right  way  to 
teach  children."  So  we  had  cards,  globes,  games  requiring 
patience,  which  we  made  up  and  pulled  to  pieces  together ; 
then  to  explain  the  difference  between  an  island,  a  peninsula, 
a  bay,  a  gulf,  a  promontory,  he  would  take  a  bucket  and  a 
shovel,  and  we  made  models  after  nature  in  a  path  in  the 
garden. 

'  As  I  grew  up  the  lessons  became  longer,  more  serious ;  he 
continued  them  to  my  seventeenth  year,  to  my  marriage. 
When  I  was  ten  years  old,  he  made  me  take  notes  while  he 
talked,  and  when  my  mind  was  capable  of  understanding  it,  he 


126  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

began  to  make  me  observe  the  artistic  side  in  everything,  above 
all  in  my  reading. 

'  Often  in  the  summer  evenings  we  used  to  sit  all  together  on 
the  balcony,  with  its  graceful  carvings ;  and  remained  there 
quiet  for  hours,  hearing  him  talk ;  the  night  would  come  on 
little  by  little,  the  last  passei-s-by  had  disappeared ;  on  the 
towing-path  opposite,  the  outline  of  a  horse  would  be  faintly 
seen,  drawing  a  barge,  which  glided  on  noiselessly ;  the  moon 
began  to  shine,  and  its  thousand  reflections,  like  a  dust  of 
diamonds,  glittered  at  our  feet ;  a  light  mist  spread  over  the 
river,  two  or  three  boats  put  off  from  the  shore.  They  were 
eel-fishers,  who  were  starting  and  shooting  their  bow-nets — my 
grandmother,  very  delicate,  would  begin  to  cough,  then  my 
uncle  would  say  :  "  It  is  time  to  return  to  the  Bovary."  "  The 
Bovary " — what  was  it .''  I  did  not  know.  I  respected  this 
name,  these  two  words,  like  everything  else  that  came  from  my 
uncle  ;  I  had  a  vague  belief  that  it  was  the  synonym  for  work, 
and  work,  of  course,  was  writing.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
during  these  years,  from  1852  to  1856,  that  he  composed  this 
work.' 

It  is  possible  to  know  too  much  of  the  intimate  life  of 
our  great  artists ;  blundering  humanity  is  always  asking, 
like  little  Caroline  Hamard,  '  was  he  good  ? '  and  has  an  ideal 
of  its  own  as  to  the  nature  of  goodness.  One  of  the  first 
demands  that  it  makes  of  its  artist  is  that  he  shall  be  a 
'  good  family  man."*  And  though  the  facts  have  shown,  over 
and  over  again,  that  the  artistic  temperament  is  incom- 
patible with  the  ordinary  conditions  of  domestic  life — that 
the  home  has  to  be  made  to  the  artist,  and  not  the  artist 
to  the  home — our  chosen  prophets  share  the  fate  of  Cass- 
andra the  moment  it  is  discovered  that  they  are  anything 
short  of  exemplary  at  home.  That  the  man  of  infinitely 
keen  perception  will  also  be  the  man  of  delicately  sensitive 
nerves ;  that  the  sedentary  man  will  in  all  probability  suffer 
agonies  through   the  failure  of  his    digestive  organs ;  that 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  121 

there  is  little  reserve  energy  left  in  the  man  A\ho  has  just 
written  a  chapter  requiring  close  thought,  or  played  a  con- 
certo ;  that  the  man  who  can  describe  in  the  most  forcible 
language  the  feelings  of  others,  will  also  have  the  gift  of 
describing  his  own, — all  these  things,  plain,  obvious,  well- 
known  as  they  are,  count  for  nothing  Avhen  an  artist  is 
weighed  in  the  balance  of  public  opinion,  Carlyle,  once  the 
divinity  of  hydropathic  society,  the  rival  of  Wordsworth  in 
the  Pantheon  of  the  Middle-class — where  is  he  now  ?  It  is 
all  very  well  to  have  written  the  Life  of  Frederick  the  Great ^ 
to  have  whitewashed  Cromwell,  to  have  exalted  Burns,  to 
have  published  an  autobiography  full  of  comfortable  long 
words,  to  have  adorned  it  with  talk  of  Baphometic  fire- 
baptism  and  fuliginosity — the  Middle-class  has  reversed  its 
verdict,  since  Mr.  Froude''s  indiscretion  turned  away  from 
its  idol,  with  the  remark  :  '  Carlyle, — oh,  that  ''s  the  chap 
that  bullied  his  wife  ;   no,  I  don't  read  liim  ! ' 

There  will  be  no  occasion  to  cry  '  Shame  **  upon  Flaubert  in 
the  matter  of  his  domestic  relations.  Though  his  letters 
continually  betray  the  artisfs  sensitiveness,  described  with 
the  artisfs  skill,  we  know  that  his  irritable  nerves  never  led 
him  to  any  want  of  outward  respect,  or  inward  considera- 
tion, to  his  mother,  or  any  sharpness  to  the  little  girl,  whom 
he  patiently  taught. 

On  the  other  hand,  Flauberfs  home  made  itself  to  him. 
What  his  life  would  have  been,  had  his  domesticities  been 
controlled  by  a  wife  jealous  of  his  books,  or  bent  on  leading 
a  life  of  her  own,  it  is  easy  to  surmise.  Imagine  Mrs.  Carlyle 
living  in  the  seclusion  of  Croisset ;  forced  to  submit  to  those 
prodigious  jokes ;  to  the  weekly  visits  of  Louis  Bouilhet ;  to 
endless  withering  strictures  upon  middle-class  prejudices,  and 
dearly  loved  habits  ;  to  a  husband,  who  came  worn  out  to 
bed  every  morning  at  four,  and  did  not  rise  till  ten ;  who 


128  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

was  known  throughout  the  country-side  as  '  that  queer 
Mr.  Gustave '' ;  and  who  frequently  appeared  at  his  window 
robed  in  a  vohiminous  dressing-gown,  in  full  sight  of  pass- 
ing steamers  ;  who  was  so  tortured  by  drawing-room  con- 
versation, as  to  experience  actual  bodily  pain  from  it ;  who 
worked  noisily,  groaning,  howling,  chanting  the  newly 
finished  phrases,  or  even  bursting  into  tears  of  despair. 
What  a  jeremiad  she  would  have  bestowed  on  us ! 

To  his  servants  Flaubert  was  an  indulgent,  and  even  an 
affectionate  master ;  his  old  nurse  '  M'amselle  Julie '  lived 
with  him  all  his  life,  and  survived  him  by  two  years ;  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  she  worshipped  the  ground  he  trod 
on.  When  he  went  to  live  in  Paris,  he  took  with  him  one 
'  Narcisse,"*  who  had  been  a  servant  of  his  father  s, — retired, 
married,  begotten  five  or  six  children,  turned  cultivator  of 
the  soil ;  he  did  not,  however,  hesitate  for  a  moment  to 
leave  wife  and  family,  and  follow  '  M"'sieu  Gustave  "*  to  Paris. 
Flaubert''s  friends  used  to  amuse  themselves  with  the  remarks 
and  reports  of  Narcisse  ;  they  used  to  send  him  their  books 
to  read.  He  would  be  found  seated  in  the  study,  or  in  front 
of  the  bookcase ;  a  feather  broom  under  his  arm,  a  book  in 
his  hand  ;  he  would  be  reading  aloud  at  the  top  of  his  voice 
in  imitation  of  his  master.  On  one  occasion  he  came  home 
completely  drunk.  Flaubert  found  him  seated,  or  rather 
collapsed,  on  a  kitchen  chair ;  he  helped  him  to  get  to  his 
room,  and  lie  down  on  the  bed  ;  then  Narcisse,  in  a  suppli- 
catino-  voice  said  :  '  Oh,  sir,  put  the  completion  on  your 
kindness :  pull  off  my  boots  for  me !""  which  the  indulgent 
master  accordingly  did.  Lyrics  and  nips  proved,  however, 
too  much  for  Narcisse  in  the  long  run,  and  he  was  forced  to 
return  to  the  bosom  of  his  family,  and  cultivation  of  the 
soil. 

During  the  period  of  the  composition  of  Madame  Bovary 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  129 

(1852-1856)  we  see  Flaubert  chiefly  through  his  correspond- 
ence with  the  Parisian  lady,  whose  acquaintance  we  have 
already  made.  From  September  1851  up  to  April  1854  there 
are  only  seven  letters  to  other  persons.  Bouilhet  was  living 
at  Rouen  during  the  greater  part  of  this  period,  so  that 
correspondence  Avith  him  was  superfluous ;  and  a  coolness 
had  arisen  with  Maxime  Ducamp.  It  was  not  till  after  the 
publication  of  Madame  Bovary  that  Flaubert  had  many 
correspondents. 

The  lady  in  question  was  a  certain  Madame  Louise  Colet, 
who  kept  a  literary,  somewhat  Bohemian  salon  in  Paris ;  and 
this  is  how  she  appeared,  and  how  her  connection  with 
Flaubert  appeared  to  the  cold  world.  Maxnue  Ducamp, 
speaking  of  the  two  books,  Elle  et  Lui  and  Lui  et  Elle,  which 
contain  the  indiscreet  revelations  of  Georges  Sand  on  the  one 
hand,  and  Paul  de  Musset  on  the  other,  writes  as  follows : — 

'  But  what  are  we  to  think  of  Louise  Colet,  who  intervenes, 
elbowing  herself  forward,  who  pushes  herself  between  the 
author  of  Rolla  and  the  author  of  Consuelo,  and  who  cries 
triumphantly  "  Here  am  I !  "  It  was  absolutely  necessary  that 
the  world  should  know  that  Alfred  de  Musset  had  had  a  fancy 
for  a  literary  woman  without  talent :  Louise  Colet  midertook  to 
enlighten  the  world.  After  Elle  et  Lui,  after  Lid  et  Elle,  Louise 
Colet  published  Lui.  Ltd  is  Alfred  de  Musset,  whom  one 
resists,  because  one  wishes  to  remain  faithful  to  an  adored 
Leonce ;  Leonce  is  Gustave  Flaubert.  Ah  !  I  know  the  story, 
I  have  been  saturated  with  it  to  nausea.  I  have  more  than 
three  hundred  letters,  which  Louise  Colet  wrote  me,  because 
she  had  taken  me  into  her  confidence  about  the  attentions  with 
which  she  persecuted  Gustave  Flaubert,  who  could  no  longer 
put  up  with  them. 

'  Her  book  Lid  is  worse  than  a  lying  fiction ;  it  is  a 
systematic  perversion  of  the  truth.  The  mask  which  conceals 
the  characters  is  so  transparent  that  they  are  recognisable ; 
all  those  with  whom  she  came  into  contact  in  life,  all  those 
who  had   not   kept   her  at  a   distance,  all  of  them   she   has 

I 


130     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

drowned  in  her  untruthful  prose.  Here  is  a  fact  which  I  ought 
to  set  right,  for  she  has  changed  its  character.  A  person, 
who  was  of  some  consideration  in  his  time,  whom  she  calls 
Duchemin,  and  whose  real  name  I  will  not  disclose,  fell  in  love 
with  her,  and  declared  his  passion.  In  Ltd  slie  revels  in  the 
details  of  this  adventure,  and — to  quote  her  own  words  :  "  The 
old  lunatic  pronouncing  these  words  flung  himself  at  my  feet ; 
he  seized  the  floating  folds  of  my  dress  between  his  knees  as  in 
a  vice,  and  taking  from  an  inner  pocket  a  dirty  pocket-book,  he 
opened  it,  and  pulled  several  bank-notes  out  of  it.  '  Let  a 
friend  have  his  way,'  said  he  to  me,  holding  them  out  to  me, 
'  and  bestow  just  a  little  love  on  one  who  feels  such  a  burning 
passion  for  you.'  He  had  the  actions  of  a  grotesque  Tartufe. 
For  a  moment  I  thought  that  my  hilarity  was  getting  the 
better  of  my  contempt ;  but  my  indignation  was  stronger  still ; 
with  the  back  of  my  left  hand  I  hit  away  the  pocket-book, 
which  went  and  fell  by  the  fire,  with  the  other  I  gave  the  old 
fool  tottering  on  his  knees  such  a  violent  push,  that  he  rolled 
over  backwards,  on  the  carpet.  His  first  care  was,  not  to  get 
up,  but  hurriedly  to  reach  out  his  hand  after  the  gaping  pocket- 
book,  which  was  touching  the  warm  ashes,  and  might  have 
caught  fii*e.  I  admit  that  I  should  have  been  enraptured  to  see 
those  insolent  bank-notes  blazing.  I  invent  nothing  in  the 
scene  that  I  describe." 

'  True,  she  invents  nothing,  but  she  omits  to  say,  that  two  of  her 
friends  hidden  behind  a  glass  door  covered  with  curtains  were  in- 
visible spectators  of  this  interview,  and  that  their  presence  was 
not  perhaps  without  some  influence  in  producing  the  splendid 
gesture,  which  pushed  the  bank-notes  aside,  whose  figure  came  to 
five  hundred  francs.  One  of  those  present  told  me  the  story,  and 
was  sufficiently  humiliated  at  the  part  he  had  been  caused  to  play. 

*  In  this  pamphlet,  in  which  hate  and  envy  of  Georges  Sand 
break  out  at  every  line,  Louise  Colet  is  nothing  less  than  a 
marchioness  descended  from  champions  of  old,  ruined  by  an 
unjust  law-suit,  and  forced  to  make  an  income  from  the 
poetical  talents  with  which  nature  has  largely  gifted  her ;  she 
is  inspii-ed  to  such  an  extent  and  so  naturally  that  in  her  walks 
with  Alfred  de  Musset,  they  sport  together  upon  the  turf  of 
Helicon,  and  speak  nothing  but  verse.     We  are  far  out  of  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  131 

record.  She  said  she  was  bom  at  Aix  in  1815,  and  asserted 
that  her  father  had  been  drawing  master  at  the  Lyons  School  ; 
she  was  proud  of  it,  and  signed  herself  Louise  Colet,  nee  Revoil, 
till  the  epoch  when  this  name  was  compromised  in  a  non- 
literary  adventure.  In  fact,  she  was  born  at  Aix,  September  17, 
1810.  Her  father  was  Antoine  Revoil,  postal  superintendent; 
Pierre  Revoil  the  painter,  who  enjoyed  some  celebrity,  was  only 
her  cousin.  Her  husband,  whom  she  always  abused,  and  of 
whom  she  has  spoken  in  L^ii  in  terms  quite  unmerited,  was  an 
excellent  man,  an  impassioned  lover  of  music,  professor  at  the 
Conservatoire,  gentle,  and  provided  with  a  patience  which 
succeeded  in  never  breaking  down. 

'There  are  people  who  try  to  get  themselves  talked  about 
in  a  certain  way,  there  are  those  who  wish  to  get  themselves 
talked  about,  no  matter  how.  Louise  Colet  was  one  of  the 
latter  class  ;  she  had  a  genius  for  advei'tisement,  and  shrank 
from  nothing  which  might  awaken  attention.  She  had  her 
portrait  published  in  "  The  Beautiful  Women  of  Paris,"  between 
a  music-hall  singer  and  a  bonnet-maker.  She  was  pretty  after 
all,  fairly  well-formed,  and  with  a  curious  contrast  between  her 
features,  which  were  refined,  and  her  walk,  which  was  like  a 
man's.  Her  clumsy  extremities,  rasping  voice,  revealed  a 
substratum  of  vulgarity,  to  which  her  work  still  further  testified. 

'  The  high  opinion  that  she  had  of  her  own  beauty,  absolutely 
rendered  her  ugly ;  she  admired  herself  to  the  point  of  being 
displeasing.  Her  eyes  lowered,  her  mouth  formed  in  the  shape 
of  a  heart,  she  would  assume  an  air  of  candour  to  say :  "  You 
know  that  the  arms  of  the  Venus  of  Milo  have  been  discovered  ?" 
"Why,  where  .^"  "In  the  sleeves  of  my  dress."  Louis 
Bouilhet  used  to  say  :  "  She  has  a  natural  want  of  naturalness." 

"  She  has  told  in  prose  and  verse  the  story  of  her  intimacy 
with  Gustave  Flaubert,  whom  she  has  outraged  and  calumniated 
at  her  will.  I  never  could  understand  how  it  was,  that  Flaubert, 
a  bom  literary  man,  a  solitary  worker,  a  chaste  man,  did  not 
turn  from  this  literary  virago.  Their  meeting  took  place  in 
August  (read  "  end  of  July ")  1 846  in  Pradier's  studio,  while  I 
was  at  Vichy.  Pradier,  not  meaning  anything  by  it,  had  said 
to  Louise  Colet :  "  You  see  that  tall  fellow  there  ;  he  wishes  to 
be  a  literary  man,  you  should  give  him  some  advice."     Those 


132  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

who  knew  Flaubert^  can  imagine  the  kind  of  hearing  he  gave 
to  such  a  remark.  A  pupil  Hke  this,  very  handsome,  veiy  tall, 
very  vigorous,  was  not  likely  to  be  unpleasing  to  the  lady  whom 
he  used  to  call  "  the  Muse."  She  used  to  say  to  Pradier  :  "  My 
dear  Phidias  !  "  Pradier  would  answer  :  "  My  dear  Sappho  !  " 
and,  joking  apart,  they  had  these  ways  of  treating  one  another 
as  demi-gods.  Flaubert  smiled  at  it,  but  Sappho  was  skilful, 
and  "  the  tall  fellow,  who  wanted  to  be  a  literary  man  "  was  not 
sufficiently  master  of  himself  for  self-defence  ;  he  failed  in 
resolution,  and  had  cause  to  be  sorry  for  it.  He  had  reckoned 
that  this  would  be  a  freak  without  consequences,  one  of  those 
agreeable,  common-place  incidents,  which  have  no  future, 
because  there  is  nothing  to  justify  them ;  he  had  thought  that 
Paris  and  Croisset  were  far  enough  apart  for  the  distance  to 
give  him  some  repose.     He  was  mistaken. 

'  Masterful,  with  no  respect  for  work,  insatiable,  and  boasting 
of  the  fact,  she  persecuted  Flaubert  He  was  afraid  of  her; 
when  he  came  to  Paris,  he  used  to  hide,  and  lower  the  blinds 
of  his  carriage.  Sometimes  he  laughed  at  it,  most  often  he 
was  vexed.  She  would  watch  him,  follow  him,  wait  for  him  at 
the  doors  of  houses,  where  he  was  calling.  One  evening,  she 
forced  an  entrance  into  a  private  room  at  the  Trois  Freres 
Provenqaux,  raging,  ready  to  kill  her  rival.  She  was  greeted 
with  an  explosion  of  laughter ;  Louis  de  Cormenin,  Bouilhet, 
Flaubert  and  I  were  dining  together,  and  had  fled  from  the 
public  room  in  order  to  be  able  to  talk  more  freely.  One  day 
when  Flaubert  was  starting  for  Rouen,  she  penetrated  into  the 
waiting  room  at  the  station,  and  made  such  a  tragical  scene, 
that  the  railway  servants  were  obliged  to  interfere.  Flaubert 
was  maddened,  and  implored  for  mercy ;  it  was  never  granted 
him.  Among  his  papers  must  have  been  found  a  note-book 
full  of  verses  written  in  a  small  obscure,  entangled  ill-formed 
hand.  It  is  a  poem  that  the  Muse  composed  in  a  thundering 
style  on  a  visit  of  twenty-four  hours,  which  she  had  made  to 
Mantes  in  Flaubert's  company,  whom  she  compares  to  "an 
indomitable  buffalo  of  the  wilds  of  America,"  while  she  assimi- 
lates herself  to  La  Valliere  and  Fontanges.  Flaubert  smiled  at 
this  clumsy  poetry  in  which  the  transparent  images  struggled 
to  reveal  what  they  should  have  concealed ;   but  at  heai't   he 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  133 

was   flattered    by   it.     However,   he   was  afraid   of  scoffs,  and 
never  ventured  to  show  this  epithalamium  to  Louis  Bouilhet. 

'There  are  women,  who  are  Hke  medlai's,  and  who  become 
good  as  they  become  old ;  this  was  not  the  case  with  Louise 
Colet ;  she  never  wearied  in  evil-speaking.  When  the  success 
of  Madame  Bovaiy  made  Gustave  Flaubert's  talent  and 
reputation  notox-ious,  the  young  man  to  whom  Pradier  had 
pledged  her  to  give  advice,  she  was  exasperated.  She 
published  a  sonnet  to  proclaim  that  the  book  was  written  in 
the  style  of  a  bagman;  she  credited  Flaubert  with  the  low 
cunning  of  a  Norman,  and  declared  that  his  triumphs  were  the 
result  of  puffs,  Avhich  he  had  had  Avritten  for  him  in  the  papers. 
She  ought  to  have  known  better  than  anybody  that  puffs  are 
not  adequate  to  establish  a  reputation,  and  do  not  give  talent 
to  those  who  have  it  not.  Her  resentment  passed  all  bounds  ; 
in  her  romance  Lui,  she  treacherously  reproaches  Leonce 
(Flaubert)  for  not  having  sent  her  10,000  francs  in  exchange 
for  an  album,  which  I  have  turned  over,  and  which  was  worth 
fifty  crowns.  She  was  often  in  want  of  money,  for  her  works 
were  not  much  run  after ;  she  was  not  rich,  her  husband  had 
died  in  1851  and  her  income  had  not  increased.' 

In  the  end,  the  good  lady  took  to  writing  fashion  articles, 
puffing  milliners,  glove-makers,  perfumers,  and  the  like.  She 
used  sometimes  to  be  paid  in  kind,  and  would  then  go  about 
among  her  acquaintances  trying  to  dispose  of  bonnets,  scarves, 
hygienic  garters,  and  what  not.  She  died  in  1875,  having 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  recapture  Flaubert  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Salammbo,  and  having  written  a  violent  attack  on 
him  in  prose.  La  Servante,  in  which  she  did  not  even  spare  his 
mother,  whom  she  had  once  interviewed  stormily  at  Croisset. 
Maxime  Ducamp  suggests  as  an  epitaph :  '  Here  lies  the 
woman  who  compromised  Victor  Cousin,  made  Alfred  de 
Musset  ridiculous,  calumniated  Gustave  Flaubert,  and  tried 
to  assassinate  Alphonse  Karr  :  Reqiiiescat  in  Pace.'' 

Upon  this  story  there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said.  The 
first  and  most  obvious  reflection  that  suggests  itself,  is  that 


134.  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

a  man,  who  tells  a  tale  without  knowing  all  the  facts,  runs 
some  considerable  risk  of  being  mistaken.  When  Maxima 
Ducamp  published  his  Souvenirs  Litteraires,  not  even  the 
first  volume  of  Flauberfs  correspondence  had  appeared ; 
from  which  alone  it  is  sufficiently  evident  that  Flaubert  was 
not  so  much  the  victim  of  irresolution  as  he  afterwards 
appeared  to  be  ;  no  man  was  ever  in  love,  if  he  was  not. 
The  first  intei-view  at  Mantes  took  place  at  the  end  of 
September  1846,  and  was  the  occasion  of  the  poem  alluded 
to  ;  after  Flauber^s  return  from  the  East  (between  1851- 
1854)  there  were  other  similar  meetings ;  to  which  the 
second  volume  of  letters  testifies.  Up  to  April  1854 
Flaubert  was  in  frequent  correspondence  with  Madame 
Colet,  and  visited  her,  from  time  to  time,  in  Paris.  Louis 
Bouilhet,  at  the  end  of  that  period  living  in  Paris,  used  also 
to  visit  her,  and  keep  Flaubert  informed  of  her  well-being. 
We  do  not  know  the  precise  moment  at  which  Flaubert 
definitely  broke  with  her.  We  see  the  rupture  impending  in 
the  letters  of  the  spring  of  1854  ;  and  on  the  5th  August  of 
the  same  year,  Flaubert  wrote  to  Louis  Bouilhet : — 

'  In  the  midst  of  my  corporal  anguish  (he  had  been  suffering 
from  a  severe  inflammation  of  the  tongue)  and  by  way  of  farce  to 
enliven  me,  a  wild  letter  fell  upon  me  from  Paris.  The  .... 
was  losing  her  head.  All  was  discovered ;  her  position  com- 
promised, etc.     I  must  write,  I  must  this,  that,  and  the  other.' 

It  is  easy  enough  to  supply  the  word  missing.  The  Muse  is, 
by  this  time,  too  well  known  to  all  of  us  to  be  concealed.  Later 
in  the  same  year,  in  the  winter,  he  asked  Louis  Bouilhet : — 

'  How  is  that  poor  Muse  .-*  What  do  you  make  of  her .''  What 
does  she  say  ?  She  writes  to  me  less  often.  I  think  that  in  her 
heart  she  is  tired  of  me.  Whose  is  the  fault  ?  Fate.  For  my- 
self my  conscience  is  perfectly  calm  on  the  subject,  I  do  not  find 
that  I  have  anything  to  reproach  myself  with.  Any  other  in 
her  place  would  be  tired  too.      I  have  nothing  lovable  about 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  135 

me,  and  I  say  that  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word.  She  is 
perhaps  the  only  woman  who  ever  loved  me.  It  is  a  curse  that 
Heaven  has  sent  upon  her .''  If  she  dared,  she  would  declare 
that  I  do  not  love  her.     She  is  mistaken,  however.' 

After  this  the  Muse  disappears  from  the  correspondence, 
except  that  in  1859  Flaubert  recommends  Ernest  Feydeau 
to  read  Lui,  and  La  Servante  (poem) ;  also  Une  Histoire  de 
Soldat,  by  the  same  author,  with  the  comment :  '  You  cannot 
picture  to  yourself  such  pitiful  vulgarity ' ;  and  in  1876  he 
wrote  to  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes  : — 

'  You  have  very  coiTCctly  guessed  the  whole  effect  that  the 
death  of  the  poor  Muse  has  had  upon  me.  The  recollection  of 
her  thus  revived  made  me  return  upon  the  course  of  my  life. 
But  your  friend  has  become  more  stoical  since  the  last  year.  I 
have  trampled  so  many  things  down  in  order  to  be  able  to  live. 
In  short,  after  a  whole  afternoon  spent  with  days  that  are  gone, 
I  determined  not  to  think  any  more  about  it,  and  set  to  work 
again.     Yet  another  end.' 

Thus  the  appearance  of  the  whole  affair  is  changed.  This 
was  not  a  mere  light  escapade,  to  which  neither  party 
attached  any  importance.  It  is  true  that  very  soon  the 
passion  was  all  on  the  side  of  the  lady,  and  that  the 
gentleman  did  his  best  to  restrict  the  connection  within 
the  decent  limits  of  an  intimate  literary  friendship ;  and 
though  the  end  of  the  correspondence  has  been  suppressed, 
and  possibly  other  letters  unflattering  to  Madame  Colefs  self- 
esteem,  it  is  significant  that  neither  during  the  three  months'' 
tour  in  Brittany,  nor  during  the  longer  Eastern  tour,  did  she 
receive,  or  at  any  rate  keep,  any  letters  from  Flaubert. 

Meanwhile,  as  to  the  lady  herself,  it  is  sufficient  to  read 
La  Servante  (prose)  to  be  convinced  that  Maxime  Ducamp 
is  not  over  severe.  What  are  we  to  think  of  a  woman  over 
fifty,  who  writes  the  story  of  her  own  violent  passion  for  a 


136  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

man  ten  years  younger  than  herself — a  story  well  known  to 
her  contemporaries — almost  without  disguise,  and  puts  it  in 
the  mouth  of  her  maid,  so  that  she  may  be  able  to  indulge 
herself  in  lavish  praises  of  her  own  beauty  ?  She  even  de- 
scribes her  visit  to  Madame  Flaubert,  whose  icy  demeanour  on 
the  occasion  we  can  imagine,  and  makes  a  great  grievance  out 
of  the  fact  that  she  was  not  invited  to  stay  the  night,  though 
she  had  a  cab  in  attendance  and  the  faithful  serving-maid. 

Her  life  of  Madame  du  Chatelet  betrays  the  same  innate 
vulgarity  of  mind ;  she  could  not  write  a  page  without 
thinking  of  herself  and  obtruding  herself  upon  her  reader. 
Her  own  relations  with  Victor  Cousin  are  tacitly  appealed 
to,  as  she  tells  the  story  of  Voltaire. 

Then  how  came  Flaubert  to  fall  in  love  with  her  ?  How 
does  any  human  being  come  to  fall  in  love  with  another 
human  being  ?  The  question  is  unanswerable ;  our  friends'* 
marriages  and  love  affairs  are  a  perpetual  cause  of  amaze- 
ment to  us,  and  always  will  be. 

Meanwhile,  Maxime  Ducamp's  story,  however  truthful  in 
the  main,  necessarily  perverts  the  significance  of  the  facts. 
Madame  Colet  was  not,  in  1846,  so  obviously  what  she 
showed  herself  to  be  in  1856.  The  story  as  told  by  Ducamp 
is  told  by  the  light  of  subsequent  knowledge  of  Madame 
Colet,  and  in  ignorance  of  great  part  of  the  relation  between 
her  and  Flaubert. 

The  year  1 846  was  Flauberfs  year  of  trouble  :  his  father 
had  died,  his  sister  had  died,  his  own  health  was  an  ever- 
present  nightmare.  The  friendship  with  Louis  Bouilhet  was 
only  in  its  infancy,  and  it  was  the  nature  of  the  man  to 
demand  a  strong  affection ;  he  was  bound  to  expand,  to 
pour  out  his  hopes,  his  sorrows,  his  literary  projects,  his 
temporary  annoyances  into  some  sympathetic  ear ;  his  sister 
had  been  the  intimate  companion  of  his  life ;    her  marriage 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  137 

and  death  left  him  stranded.  It  is  true  that  there  was 
Maxime  Dueamp ;  but,  just  at  this  time,  Maxime  Ducamp 
was  away  from  Paris,  and,  further,  Flauberfs  relation  with 
Ducamp  was  always  rather  that  of  the  person  who  lets 
himself  be  loved,  than  that  of  the  one  who  loves.  Ducamp 
tried  to  control  and  guide  him.  Flaubert  was  grateful  for 
his  affection,  returned  it  in  his  boisterous  way,  but  was 
never  quite  satisfied  with  it ;  there  was  always  something  in 
Ducamp  rather  irritating  to  him.  Thus,  when  Flavibert 
was  in  Paris  in  July  1846,  he  was  ready  to  fall  at  the  feet 
of  almost  any  Avoman  Avho  betrayed  a  liking  for  him,  and  he 
was  particularly  susceptible  to  the  charms  of  a  clever  woman ; 
by  far  the  larger  number  of  his  letters  were  written  to 
women.  We  have  seen  how  Flaubert  met  Victor  Hugo  at 
Pradier''s ;  Madame  Colet  had  contrived  to  hook  herself  on  to 
Victor  Hugo ;  she  would  not  appear  to  Flaubert  as  a  literary 
virago  in  1846,  but  rather  as  a  brilliant  and  beautiful 
woman,  occupying  a  prominent  place  in  the  first  literary 
society  in  Paris ;  he  was  then  the  aspirant,  she  had  arrived. 
An  enthusiastic  admirer  (of  literature  ?)  had  caused  her 
complete  works  to  be  printed  in  large-paper  quarto  volumes, 
and  published  twenty-five  copies  for  private  circulation. 
Victor  Hugo  Avrote  letters  to  her,  beginning  '  O  sister !  "■ 
She  had  been  addressed  by  a  poet  as  '  Penserosa."'  Flaubert 
wanted  a  woman  to  be  his  literary  companion,  and  here 
was  the  one  who,  after  Georges  Sand,  seemed  to  him  to 
occupy  the  highest  place  in  letters,  ready  to  be  that 
companion — nay,  more,  to  bestow  her  love  upon  him. 

There  was  also  in  Flaubert,  when  confronted  with  the 
practical  world,  a  simplicity  strangely  in  contrast  with  the 
minuteness  of  his  observation.  His  mind,  while  recording 
what  was  passing  around  hira,  did  not  immediately  draw 
conclusions.     He  mentally  photographed  the  external  world. 


138  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

but  did  not  develop  the  photograph  till  afterwards.  To 
the  hundred  little  gestures  by  which  character  is  revealed  in 
daily  intercourse,  he  was  at  the  time  blind  ;  it  did  not  occur 
to  him  to  question  anybody ""s  motives  for  being  kind  to  him ; 
and  this  big  lion  was  particularly  fond  of  being  stroked  the 
right  way.  But  on  any  literary  question,  he  was,  as  a 
rule,  more  than  wide  awake.  Why  then  did  he  not  at  once 
see  through  the  shallowness  of  Madame  Colefs  literary 
capacity  ?  This  is  due  to  the  curious  way  in  which  he 
combined  his  literary  admiration  with  his  affection.  He 
loved  Louis  Bouilhet,  as  much  as  one  man  can  love  another, 
therefore  Louis  Bouilhet  was  not  only  a  poet,  but  the  poet ; 
he  fell  in  love  with  Madame  Colet,  and  therefore  swallowed 
her  vulgar  verses  whole,  as  long  as  his  passion  lasted.  His 
disillusionment  with  regard  to  her  began  in  the  region  of 
letters  ;  and  he  did  not  break  with  her  permanently  till  she 
forced  him  to  see  in  her  a  rival,  not  only  to  his  mother,  but 
to  Madame  Bovary.  It  is  this  which  gives  the  episode  more 
than  a  gossipy  interest.  Flauberfs  fidelity  to  art  was  tested 
by  it ;  and  he  came  unscathed  out  of  the  ordeal.  It  con- 
firmed him  in  his  determination  not  to  marry ;  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  but  that  many  pages  of  Madame  Bovary 
would  have  been  less  well  written  had  it  not  been  for  this 
experience.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Madame  Colet  was  of 
the  same  age  as  the  original  of  Madame  Arnoux,  the  heroine 
of  Flaubert's  sentimentalities  at  Trouville,  and  must  have 
borne  a  strong  personal  resemblance  to  her. 

In  dealing  with  Flaubert's  correspondence  after  this  period, 
and  especially  his  correspondence  with  Madame  Colet,  the 
(question  arises  as  to  whether  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  make 
a  digest  of  the  whole ;  extract  from  the  mass  of  letters  all 
that  is  valuable  in  the  way  of  opinion ;  give  examples  of 
characteristic  forms  of  statement,  and  transitions  of  thought ; 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  139 

in  a  word,  create  a  systematic  compendium  of  maxims  of 
Gustave  Flaubert.  The  reasons  for  not  adopting  such  a 
course  are  obvious.  The  letters,  not  being  written  for 
publication,  are  to  some  extent  incoherent.  Flaubert,  after 
a  hard  day's  work  sought  relaxation  in  con-espondence ;  he 
Avrote  as  though  he  were  communing  with  himself;  he  was 
at  no  pains  to  measure  his  statements,  to  refrain  from 
repetitions.  It  would,  however,  be  practically  impossible 
to  make  a  digest  of  the  letters  without  to  some  extent 
assuming-  the  office  of  critic ;  and  criticism  on  what  was 
never  intended  to  be  published  is  out  of  place.  The  value 
of  the  letters  as  a  human  document  lies  precisely  in  the  fact 
that  they  were  thrown  off  unconsciously ;  and  give  us, 
without  any  concealment,  without  any  straining  for  effect, 
the  passing  feeling  of  the  man  who  wrote  them.  They  give 
us  more.  If  his  friends  are  to  be  believed,  Flaubert  talked  to 
them  much  as  he  wrote  to  them ;  and  it  is  from  the  letters 
that  we  are  able  to  draw  conclusions  as  to  the  fascination 
which  the  personality  of  the  man  had  for  those  who  knew 
him  intimately,  and  as  to  the  invigorating  talk  which  he 
fearlessly  flung  out  of  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  reproduce  all  that  has  been 
published  of  the  correspondence  would  be  to  weary  the 
reader  with  repetition.  Therefore,  those  passages  have  been 
selected  for  translation  which  seemed  to  bear  upon  features 
of  his  life  interesting  to  students  of  human  nature,  and  the 
extracts  have  been  strung  together  in  order  of  time.  Any 
other  manipulation  would  destroy  the  chief  charm  of  the 
letters,  their  fresh  personal  note ;  while  the  perpetual  inter- 
vention of  the  editor  would  be  tiresome. 

From  all  points  of  view  it  would  be  a  grievous  error  to 
attempt  to  construct  a  Flaubertian  system.  No  man  ever 
had  a  greater  detestatiom  of  dogma ;   and  he  was  extremely 


140  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

angry  when  his  name  was  mentioned  as  the  leader  of  a 
school.  He  was  at  no  pains  to  formulate  a  set  of  literary 
doctrines  in  spite  of  his  readiness  to  thunder  on  the  text  of 
'  Art  for  Arfs  sake  "* ;  and,  least  of  all,  should  a  serious  philo- 
sophical system  be  looked  for  in  his  private  correspondence. 

The  letters  to  Madame  Colet  at  this  period,  1851-4,  dealt 
chiefly  with  literary  questions,  and  the  agonies  which 
Flaubert  experienced  in  writing  Madame  Bovary ;  there 
were  also  a  few  passages,  in  which  his  deeper  personality 
revealed  itself.  As  his  first  letter  to  her,  after  his  return 
from  the  East,  is  a  reply,  Ave  may  presume  that  it  was  the 
lady  who  resumed  the  correspondence.  There  is  evidence 
in  one  of  the  letters  that  he  tried  to  break  with  her  when 
leaving  France ;  he  did  not  go  to  bid  her  farewell.  There 
is  no  allusion  to  the  death  of  her  husband  in  any  of  the 
letters ;  but  we  know  that  he  died  in  1851.  Is  it  possible 
that  she  formed  some  hope  of  finding  him  a  successor,  and 
thus  was  led  to  reopen  the  intimacy  ? 

'  There  are  in  me,  speaking  of  literature,  two  distinct  men, 
one  who  is  taken  by  resounding  cries,  lyricism,  great  eagle 
flights,  by  all  the  sonority  of  phrases,  elevations  of  the  ideal ; 
another  who  works  and  worries  into  the  truth,  as  far  as  he  can, 
who  loves  to  bring  the  small  fact  to  book  as  exhaustively  as  the 
big  one,  who  Avould  like  to  make  you  feel  the  things  that  he 
describes,  alinost  materially.  This  latter  is  fond  of  laughter, 
and  delights  in  the  animal  side  of  man. 

'  What  seems  fine  to  me,  what  I  would  like  to  write, 
would  be  a  book  about  nothing,  a  book  without  any  external 
connection,  which  would  support  itself  of  itself  by  the  internal 
force  of  its  style,  as  the  earth  is  held  in  the  air  without  being 
supported  ;  a  book  which  would  have  hardly  any  subject — or  at 
least  in  which  the  subject  would  be  almost  invisible.  The  most 
beautiful  works  are  those  in  whicli  there  is  least  matter ;  the 
closer  the  expression  comes  to  the  thought,  the  closer  the  word 
adheres  to  it,  and  disappears,  the  more  beautiful  it  is. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  141 

*  It  is  for  this  reason  that  there  are  neither  good  nor  bad 
subjects,  and  that  one  might  ahnost  establish  an  axiom,  looking 
from  the  point  of  view  of  pure  art,  to  the  effect  that  there  is  no 
subject ;  style  being  in  itself  an  independent  manner  of  seeing 
things ;  I  should  require  a  whole  book  to  develojje  what  I 
mean.' 

This  literary  doctrine  recurs  again  and  again  ;  and  to  the 
ordinary  sinner  is  certainly  incomprehensible. 

Music  seems  to  fit  the  definition  on  which  Flaubert  tries 
to  insist.  Strings  of  words,  whose  mere  sounds  suggest 
certain  conditions  of  thought,  are  an  impossible  conception. 
The  idea  arose  partly  from  Flauberfs  own  personal  diffi- 
culties in  composition  and  sensitive  ear  to  begin  with,  and  is 
something  different  from  his  protest  against  '  the  novel  with 
a  purpose,""  though  closely  allied  to  it,  and  often  confused 
Avith  it;  as  also  from  his  frequently  expressed  demand  for 
the  impersonal  in  art. 

'  You  tell  me  that  you  begin  to  understand  my  life  ;  it  would 
be  necessary  to  know  its  origins.  Some  day  I  shall  describe 
myself  quite  at  my  ease ;  but  at  that  time  I  shall  no  longer 
enjoy  the  necessary  strength.  I  have  no  horizon  in  front  of  me, 
except  that  which  surrounds  me  at  this  present.  I  consider 
myself  as  being  forty  years  old,  fifty,  sixty.  My  life  is  a  wound- 
up machine,  which  turns  regularly ;  what  I  do  to-day,  I  shall 
do  to-morrow,  I  did  it  yesterday,  I  have  been  the  same  man 
for  ten  years ;  it  has  turned  out,  that  my  organisation  is  a 
system,  the  whole  without  any  deliberately  adopted  purpose, 
by  the  tendency  of  things  in  general,  which  makes  the  white 
bear  inhabit  the  ice,  and  the  camel  walk  on  the  sand.  I  am  a 
man-pen,  I  am  by  it,  by  reason  of  it,  in  relation  to  it,  and  much 
more  with  it.  You  will  see  from  the  beginning  of  next  winter 
an  apparent  change.  I  shall  spend  three  wintei's  in  wearing 
out  some  pairs  of  shoes ;  then  I  shall  return  to  my  lair,  where 
I  shall  die  obscure  or  illustrious.  Manuscript  or  in  pi'int,  there  is 
however  one  thing  that  torments  me,  the  want  of  knowledge  of 
my  measure.    This  man,  who  says  he  is  so  calm,  is  full  of  doubts 


142  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

about  himself,  he  would  like  to  know  just  how  far  he  can  rise, 
and  the  exact  power  of  his  muscles.  But  to  ask  that  is  to  be 
very  ambitious,  for  the  exact  knowledge  of  one's  strength  is 
perhaps  nothing  other  than  genius.' 

The  astuteness  with  which  Madame  Colet  beguiled  her 
admirer  may  be  infen-ed  from  the  following : — 

'  A  fortnight  ago  on  the  Pont  Royal  on  our  way  to  dinner  you 
said  a  thing  which  pleased  me  much,  to  wit,  "  that  you  were 
beginning  to  perceive  that  there  is  nothing  artistically  more 
feeble,  than  to  introduce  one's  personal  sentiments  in  art." ' 

There  is  nothing  more  flattering  to  the  human  male  than 
to  make  a  convert  of  an  adoring  female ;  the  experienced 
Muse  had  learned  her  lesson. 

Talking  of  De  Musset  he  says  : — 

'  Nerves,  magnetism,  there  you  have  poetry !  No ;  poetry 
has  a  calmer  base  ;  if  having  sensitive  nerves  were  enough  to 
make  a  poet,  I  should  be  a  greater  poet  than  Shakespeare,  than 
Homer  ;  the  latter  I  picture  to  myself  as  far  from  being  a 
nervous  man.  This  confusion  is  a  sacrilege  ;  I  can  say  something 
on  the  subject,  I,  who  have  heard  people  speaking  in  a  low 
voice  thirty  yards  off  me  through  closed  doors  ;  I,  whose  viscera 
have  been  seen  through  my  skin,  leaping  and  bounding, 
who  have  at  times  felt  in  the  space  of  a  second  thousands  of 
thoughts,  images,  combinations  of  all  kinds,  Avhich  threw  into 
my  brain  all  at  once,  as  it  were,  all  the  lighted  squibs  of  a  set 
piece  of  fireworks ;  but  these  are  excellent  moving  subjects  of 
conversation.  Poetiy  is  not  a  debility  of  the  mind,  and  these 
nervous  susceptibilities  are.  This  faculty  of  abnormal  perception 
is  a  weakness.     I  explain  myself. 

'  If  I  had  had  a  sounder  brain,  I  should  not  have  made 
myself  ill  over  reading  law,  and  wearying  myself ;  I  should  have 
made  some  profit  out  of  it,  instead  of  getting  hann.  The 
vexation  instead  of  staying  in  my  head  passed  into  my  limbs, 
and  made  them  writhe  in  convulsions.  It  was  a  deviation. 
There  often  appear  children,  who  are  made  ill  by  music ;  they 
have  great  capacity  for  it,  retain  airs  on  the  first  hearing, 
become  excited  over  playing  the  piano,  their  heai-ts  beat,  they 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  143 

become  thin,  pale,  fall  sick,  and  their  poor  nerves,  like  those 
of  dogs,  writhe  in  suffering  at  the  sound  of  the  notes.  These 
are  not  the  future  Mozarts ;  the  vocation  has  been  misplaced  ; 
the  idea  has  passed  into  the  flesh,  where  it  remains  barren,  and 
the  flesh  wastes ;  neither  genius  nor  health  are  the  outcome. 

'  The  same  thing  in  art ;  passion  does  not  make  verses,  and 
the  more  personal  you  are,  the  more  feeble  you  are.' 

Flaubert  rarely  speaks  of  his  nervous  malady  ;  but  he 
carefully  studied  it,  and  therefore  the  ideas  that  he  formed 
about  it  are  interesting,  though  they  may  have  no  value  to 
physicians. 

'  You  tell  me  that  if  you  were  a  man,  you  would  be  furious 
at  seeing  a  woman  prefer  a  mediocrity  to  yourself.  O  Woman ! 
O  poetess  !  How  little  you  know  of  the  hearts  of  males  !  By 
the  age  of  eighteen  a  man  has  already  received  so  many  knock- 
down blows  in  this  particular,  that  he  has  become  callous.  Men 
treat  women,  as  we  treat  the  public  ;  with  much  outward  defer- 
ence, and  a  sovereign  inward  contempt.  Love  humiliated 
becomes  the  pride  of  the  libertine.  I  believe  that  success  with 
women  is  generally  a  sign  of  mediocrity,  and  yet,  it  is  what  we 
all  envy,  the  crown  of  everything  else  ;  but  one  does  not  like  to 
admit  it,  and  as  Ave  consider  the  objects  of  their  preference  very 
much  beneath  us,  we  arrive  at  the  conviction  that  they  are 
stupid,  which  is  not  the  case.  We  judge  from  our  point  of 
view,  they  from  theirs  ;  beauty  is  not  to  a  woman  the  same  that 
it  is  to  a  man  ;  they  will  never  agree  on  that  subject,  nor  on 
the  question  of  mind,  sentiment,  nor  anything  else.' 

Again,  on  the  question  of  Art : — 

'  The  time  of  the  beautiful  is  passed.  Humanity  free  to  re- 
turn to  it,  has  nothing,  for  the  present  quarter  of  an  hour,  to  do 
with  it.  The  further  it  goes  the  more  scientific  will  art  become ; 
and  in  the  same  way  science  vdll  be  more  artistic  ;  the  two 
after  having  been  separated  at  the  base  will  meet  at  the 
summit. 

'  I  can  conceive,  however,  a  style  which  would  be  beautiful, 
which  some  one  will  produce  one  of  these  days,  in  ten  years,  or 


144  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ten  centuries,  and  which  will  be  as  rhythmical  as  verse,  precise 
as  the  language  of  science,  and  which  will  have  undulations, 
modulations  like  these  of  a  violoncello,  flashes  of  fire.  A  style 
which  would  enter  into  the  idea  like  the  stroke  of  a  stiletto, 
and  on  which  our  thought  would  sail  over  gleaming  surfaces  as 
when  one  sails  in  a  boat  with  a  good  wind  to  one's  back.  Prose 
is  born  of  yestei'day,  that  has  to  be  said.  Verse  is  the  form,  the 
appropriate  form,  of  the  literature  of  antiquity.  All  the 
combinations  of  prosody  have  been  made,  those  of  prose  are 
still  to  make.' 

Occasionally  Flaubert  makes  a  strange  muddle  over  a 
pretty  speech,  as  in  the  case  of  the  bed,  which  he  destined 
for  his  parents  : — 

'  I  have  always  lived  without  diversions,  I  should  require 
them  huge.  I  was  born  with  a  heap  of  vices,  which  have  never 
poked  their  noses  out  of  the  window.  I  like  wine,  and  I 
do  not  drink.  I  am  a  gambler,  and  I  have  never  touched  a 
card.  Debauchery  pleases  me,  and  I  live  like  a  monk.  I  am 
at  bottom  a  mystic,  and  I  believe  in  nothing.  But  I  love  you, 
my  dear  heart,  and  I  greet  you  tenderly.  Ti'uly,  if  I  were  to 
see  you  every  day,  perhaps  I  should  love  you  less  ;  but  no, 
there  is  still  a  long  time  before  us,  you  live  in  the  back-shop  of 
my  heart,  and  you  go  out  on  Sundays.' 

The  Muse  was  not  content  with  playing  the  part  of  Sally 
in  our  Alley  ;  she  wished  to  incorporate  herself  more  closely 
with  Flaubert, — to  be  received,  so  to  speak,  by  the  family. 

'  Yet  another  word  with  reference  to  my  mother.  No  doubt 
she  would  have  received  you  in  her  best  manner,  if  you  had 
met  one  way  or  another,  but  as  to  being  jiattered  by  it  (don't 
take  this  for  a  gratuitous  insult ;)  you  must  know  that  she  is 
never  flattered  by  anything ;  poor  woman  !  it  is  very  difficult  to 
please  her,  she  has  in  her  personality  something  imperturbable, 
icy,  simple,  which  makes  you  ill  at  ease ;  she  does  without 
principles  still  more  comfortably  than  without  expansiveness. 
Naturally  virtuous,  she  immodestly  declares  she  does  not 
know  what  virtue  is,  and  is  unconscious  of  ever  having 
sacrificed  anything  to  it.' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  145 

The  Muse  had  a  prodigious  power  of  weeping,  being  a 
profoundly  sensitive  creature,  after  the  manner  of  selfish 
people.  Her  tears  occasionally  elicit  valuable  words  of 
comfort. 

'  Do  not  let  us  bewail  anything ;  to  complain  of  everything 
which  afflicts  or  irritates  us  is  to  complain  of  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  existence.  We  are  made  to  depict  sorrow,  are  we,  and 
to  have  nothing  else  to  do  with  it.  Let  us  be  religious  ;  as  for 
me,  every  thing  disagreeable  that  happens  to  me,  be  it  small  or 
great,  makes  me  cling  closer  to  my  eternal  trouble.  I  clutch 
hold  of  it  with  both  my  hands,  and  I  close  my  eyes  calling  for 
grace ;  it  comes,  God  has  pity  on  the  simple,  and  the  sun 
always  shines  for  the  strong  hearts,  who  place  themselves  above 
the  mountains.  I  am  taking  to  a  kind  of  aesthetic  mysticism 
(if  the  two  words  can  go  together)  and  I  could  wish  it  were 
stronger.  When  no  encouragement  comes  to  you  from  others, 
when  the  external  world  disgusts  you,  makes  you  languid, 
corrupts  you,  brutalises  you,  honourable  and  fastidious  people 
g.re  forced  to  seek  in  themselves  somewhere  for  a  more  decent 
place  to  hve  in.  If  Society  continues  to  go  on  as  it  is  now,  we 
shall  again  see,  I  believe,  mystics,  such  as  there  have  been  at 
^1  dark  periods.  The  soul  unable  to  expand  will  concentrate 
herself;  the  time  is  not  far  off  when  the  universal  weariness  will 
return,  the  belief  in  the  end  of  the  world,  the  expectation  of  a 
Messiah.  But  the  theological  basis  wanting,  where  will  now  be 
the  starting  point  of  that  enthusiasm,  which  knows  not  itself .'' 
Some  will  seek  it  in  the  flesh,  others  in  the  old  religions,  others 
in  art  and  humanity,  as  the  Hebrew  race  in  the  desert  went  to 
worship  all  manner  of  idols.  We  ourselves  have  come  a  little 
too  soon,  in  five  and  twenty  years  the  point  of  intersection  will 
be  superb  in  the  hands  of  a  master,  then  prose  above  all  (the 
younger  form)  will  be  able  to  pay  a  formidable  humanitarian 
symphony ;  books  Hke  the  Satyricon  and  the  Golden  Ass  may 
return,  possessing  in  psychological  outpourings  all  that  those 
have  in  sensual  excesses. 

'  Here  is  what  all  the  socialists  in  the  world  have  refused  to 
see  with  their  eternal  materialist  preaching,  they  have  denied 
pain,  they  have   blasphemed   three   parts   of  modem   poetry ; 


146  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

nothing  will  eradicate,  nothing  dry  up  the  blood  of  Christ, 
which  stirs  in  us,  there  is  no  need  to  wipe  it  away,  but  to  make 
streams  for  it  to  flow  in.  If  the  sense  of  human  insufficiency, 
of  the  nothingness  of  life  were  to  pass  away  (and  that  would  be 
the  consequence  of  the  socialist's  hypothesis)  we  should  be 
duller  than  the  birds,  who  at  least  perch  on  the  trees.  The 
soul  is  now  sleeping,  drunk  with  words,  she  has  heard,  but  she 
will  have  a  frantic  awakening  when  she  will  give  herself  over 
to  the  joys  of  freedom,  for  she  will  no  longer  have  anything 
around  her  to  trammel  her,  neither  government,  nor  religion, 
nor  any  formula ;  republicans  of  every  shade  appear  to  me  the 
most  barbarous  pedants  in  the  world,  they  who  dream  of 
organisation  by  legislations,  of  a  society  like  a  convent.  I 
believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  rules  are  on  their  way  off,  that 
the  barriers  are  being  overturned,  that  the  earth  is  levelling. 
This  present  great  confusion  will  perhaps  herald  liberty.  Art, 
which  always  advances,  has  at  any  rate  followed  this  course ; 
what  school  of  poetry  now  stands .''  plastic  itself  becomes 
increasingly  less  jDOSsible  with  the  limitations  of  our  language, 
its  preciseness,  and  our  vague,  mixed,  unseizable  ideas ;  all 
that  we  can  do  then,  is  by  dint  of  skill  to  screw  up  the  strings 
of  our  guitar  so  often  thrummed  upon,  and  to  be  above  all 
virtuosos,  since  simplicity  at  our  epoch  is  a  chimera.  Along 
with  that  the  picturesque  is  almost  leaving  the  world,  poetry 
will  not  however  die,  but  what  will  be  the  poetry  of  the  future .'' 
I  do  not  see  it  clearly,  who  knows  .^  Beauty  will  perhaps 
become  a  sentiment,  useless  to  humanity,  and  art  will  be 
something  holding  a  middle  place  between  music  and  algebra. 

'  Since  I  can  not  see  to-morrow,  I  should  have  liked  to  see 
yesterday.  Why  did  I  not  live  at  any  rate  under  Louis  xiv., 
with  a  big  wig,  tightly  fitting  stockings,  and  the  society  of 
M.  Descartes  }  Why  did  I  not  live  in  the  time  of  Ronsard  .> 
Why  did  I  not  live  in  the  time  of  Nero  ?  How  I  would  have 
talked  with  the  Greek  rhetoricians !  How  I  would  have 
travelled  in  the  gi*eat  chariots  on  the  Roman  roads  and  slept 
in  the  hostelries  at  night  with  the  vagabond  priests  of  Cybele  ! 
Why  did  I  not  live  above  all  in  the  time  of  Pericles  to  sup  with 
Aspasia  crowned  with  violets,  and  singing  verses  between  white 
marble  walls  >     Alas  !  it  is  all  finished,  all  that ;  that  dream  will 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  147 

never  come  back.  Now  I  have  lived  every^where  ;  doubtless  in 
some  state  of  pre-existence.  I  am  sure  of  having  been  leader 
of  a  troop  of  strolling  comedians,  under  the  Roman  Empire ; 
one  of  those  fine  fellows,  who  went  to  Sicily  to  buy  women  to 
make  actresses  of  them,  and  who  were  at  once  professors,  pimps, 
and  artists ;  they  are  fine  figures  are  those  same  rascals  in  the 
comedies  of  Plautus,  and  in  reading  them  it  all  comes  back 
upon  me  like  a  reminiscence.  Have  you  ever  experienced 
that — the  historic  shudder  ? 

'  When  we  compare  ourselves  with  those  who  surround  us,  we 
admire  ourselves,  but  when  we  lift  our  eyes  higher  to  the 
masters,  to  the  absolute,  to  the  dream,  how  we  despise  our- 
selves !  I  read  one  of  these  days  recently,  a  fine  thing ;  to  wit 
the  life  of  Careme  the  cook.  I  do  not  know  by  what  connection 
of  ideas,  I  had  come  to  think  of  this  illustrious  inventor  of 
sauces,  but  I  turned  out  his  name  in  the  Universal  Biography ; 
it  is  magnificent  considered  as  the  existence  of  an  artist  and 
enthusiast,  it  would  stir  the  envy  of  more  than  one  poet.  Here 
are  some  of  his  phrases  :  when  he  was  told  to  take  care  of  his 
health  and  work  less ;  "  The  chai-coal  kills  us,"  he  said,  "  but 
what  does  it  matter  }  Fewer  days,  more  glory,"  And,  in  one 
of  his  books  in  which  he  admits  that  he  was  gluttonous,  "  but  I 
perceived  my  vocation  so  clearly,  that  I  did  not  stop  at  eating  I" 
This  "  stop  at  eating  "  is  prodigious  in  a  man,  whose  art  it  was.' 

Here  is  another  piece  of  literary  criticism  flattering  to 
our  national  pride,  and  containing  a  singularly  acute  obser- 
vation : — 

'  What  distinguishes  great  geniuses  is  generalisation  and 
creation ;  they  resume  scattered  personalities  in  a  type,  and 
bring  new  characters  to  the  conscious  perception  of  humanity  ; 
do  we  not  believe  in  the  existence  of  Don  Quixote  as  in  that  of 
Caesar  .-*  Shakespeare  is  something  tremendous  in  this  respect ; 
he  was  not  a  man  but  a  continent ;  there  were  great  men  in 
him,  whole  crowds,  countries.  They  have  no  need  of  attending 
to  style,  men  like  that,  they  are  strong  in  spite  of  all  their 
faults  and  because  of  them  ;  but  we,  the  little  ones,  we  are 
worth  nothing  except  by  finish  of  execution.  Hugo,  in  this 
century,  will  knock  the  bottom  out  of  everybody,  although  he 


148  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

is  full  of  bad  things,  but  what  a  wind  !  What  a  wind  !  I  ven- 
ture here  on  a  proposition,  which  I  would  not  dare  to  express 
anywhere  else  :  it  is  that  the  great  men  often  write  veiy  badly, 
and  so  much  the  better  for  them.  It  is  not  to  them  that  we 
must  go  to  look  for  the  art  of  form,  but  to  the  second  bests,  to 
Horace,  to  La  Bruyere  ;  one  should  know  the  masters  by  heart, 
idolise  them,  try  to  think  like  them, — and  then  separate  from 
them  for  ever.  In  the  matter  of  technical  instruction  there  is 
more  profit  to  be  drawn  from  the  learned,  the  dexterous  minds.' 

On  another  occasion  he  says  of  Shakespeare  : — 

'  But  what  a  man  he  was  !     How  small  other  poets  appear  by 
his  side,  all  without  any  exception,  and  above  all  so  trivial.  .  . 
It  seems  to  me  that  if  I  were  to  see  Shakespeare  in  person,  I 
should  die  of  fear.' 

The  Muse  meanwhile  was  pursuing  her  avocation.  She 
undertook  to  write  a  poem  on  the  Acropolis  for  a  prize 
competition,  and  the  prophet  of  'art  for  art  alone' 
materially  assisted  her ;  he  and  Louis  Bouilhet  revised  the 
manuscript  together.  The  work  was  submitted  to  the 
Academy.  It  was  not  always  easy  to  correct  the  works  of 
the  Muse  ;  her  ignorance  seems  to  have  been  as  robustly 
developed  as  her  ambition. 

Flaubert  sent  the  Muse  his  private  notes  on  his  Eastern 
travels ;  she  criticised  them  chiefly  to  express  surprise  that 
her  name  did  not  appear  in  them,  and  to  reprove  Flauberfs 
want  of  delicacy.  In  his  reply  the  following  passage 
occurs : — 

'  Up  to  the  present  time  people  have  understood  by  the 
East  something  gleaming,  yelling,  impassioned,  dashing.  They 
have  seen  nothing  in  it  but  dancing  women  and  curved  sabres  ; 
fanaticism,  voluptuousness  ;  they  remain  where  Byron  left  them  ; 
for  my  part  I  saw  it  differently.  What  I  like  in  the  East,  on 
the  contrary,  is  the  unconscious  greatness,  the  harmony  of  things 
incongruous.     I  remember  a  bather  who  had  a  silver  bracelet 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  149 

on  his  left  arm,  and  on  the  other  a  bhster.  That  is  the  true 
East ;  rascals  in  rags  galooned,  but  covered  with  vermin.  .  .  . 
That  reminds  me  of  Jaffa,  where  on  entering  I  smelled  at  once 
the  odour  of  orange  gardens  and  corpses  ;  the  cemetery  exposed 
its  half-coiTupted  skeletons,  while  the  green  trees  swung  their 
golden  fruit  over  our  heads.  Do  you  not  see  that  this  poetry 
is  complete,  that  this  is  the  great  synthesis  ?  All  the  appetites 
of  the  imagination  and  thought  are  there  satisfied  at  once  ; 
there  is  nothing  left  out  here  :  but  people  of  taste,  the  people 
of  pretty  touches,  of  purification,  of  illusions,  those,  who  with 
manuals  of  anatomy  for  ladies,  science  within  the  grasp  of  all, 
pretty  sentiments,  and  honeyed  art,  change,  erase,  remove,  and 
call  themselves  classic,  the  wretches.  Ah,  how  I  would  like  to 
be  a  learned  man  !  What  a  beautiful  book  I  would  write  entitled 
Of  the  Interpretation  of  Antiquity  ;  for  I  am  sure  I  am  in  the  true 
tradition  ;  what  I  put  into  it  is  the  modem  sentiment.' 

The  nature  of  the  disillusionment  which  Flaubert  was  to 
suffer  in  the  matter  of  the  Muse  is  clearly  indicated  in  the 
following : — 

'You  are  not  a  woman,  and  if  I  have  loved  you  more  and 
more  deeply  (try  to  understand  this  word  "deeply")  than  any 
other,  it  is  because  you  seemed  to  me  less  a  woman  than  any 
other ;  none  of  our  differences  have  ever  arisen  except  from  the 
feminine  side  of  you.  Think  over  this — you  will  see  if  I  am 
mistaken.  I  would  wish  that  we  should  keep  our  two  bodies, 
and  be  only  one  same  mind  ;  understand  that  this  is  not  love, 
but  something  higher,  it  seems  to  me,  since  this  longing  of  the 
soul  is  almost  a  need  that  the  soul  has  to  live,  to  expand,  to  be 
greater.  Every  sentiment  is  an  extension.  For  this  reason 
liberty  is  the  noblest  of  passions.' 

Here  is  another  reference  to  his  malady  : — 

'  No,  I  regret  none  of  my  youth.  I  was  horribly  wearied.  I 
dreamed  of  suicide,  I  consumed  myself  in  all  possible  kinds  of 
melancholy ;  my  nervous  malady  did  me  good,  it  diverted  all 
that  to  the  physical  element,  and  left  my  head  cooler,  and  then 
it  introduced  me  to  curious  psychological  phenomena,  of  which 


150  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

no  one  has  any  idea,  or  rather  which  no  one  has  felt.  I  will 
take  niy  revenge  some  day,  I  will  utilise  them  in  a  book  (that 
metaphj^sical  romance  with  appai'itions  of  which  I  spoke  to 
you),  but  as  it  is  a  subject  which  frightens  me,  speaking  from 
the  point  of  view  of  health,  I  must  wait,  and  I  must  be  far 
from  these  impressions  to  be  able  to  give  them  to  myself 
artificially,  ideally,  and  so  without  danger  to  myself  or  my 
work.' 

As  a  specimen  of  the  Muse"'s  poetical  powers  the  following 
line,  literally  translated  from  the  Paysanne^  is  illustrative  : — 

'  And  each  year  he  had  a  baby.' 

'  Et  chaque  annee  il  avait  un  enfant.' 

It  is  necessary  to  quote  the  French  in  order  to  show  that 
no  injustice  is  being  done  to  the  good  lady.  Even  the 
enamoured  Flaubert  Avas  startled  by  this. 

With  the  imaginary  conversations  of  the  dotards  in 
Egypt,  the  following  may  be  compared  :  Flaubert  had  been 
at  a  funeral : — 

'While  I  was  looking  at  poor  Pouchet,  who  was  writhing  as 
he  stood  like  a  reed  before  the  wind,  do  you  know  what  I  had 
beside  me  .''  A  gentleman,  who  questioned  me  on  my  travels : 
"  Are  there  museums  in  Egypt }  What  is  the  state  of  the 
public  libraries.-*"  (this  is  literal)  and  as  I  dispersed  his 
illusions,  he  was  miserable.  "  Is  it  possible  .''  What  a  wretched 
country !  How  is  civilisation  to  .  .  .  etc.  etc'  The  interment 
being  Protestant  the  priest  spoke  in  French  at  the  edge  of  the 
grave ;  my  friend  was  better  pleased  with  that :  "  and  then 
Catholicism  is  robbed  of  these  flowers  of  rhetoric."  O  men,  O 
mortals,  and  to  say  that  one  is  always  deceived,  that  one  is  wrong 
to  believe  in  one's  power  of  inventing,  that  the  reality  always  is 
too  big  for  you.  I  went  to  this  ceremony  with  the  intention 
of  stiffening  my  mind  a  bit  in  the  art  of  delicate  touches,  of 
trying  to  discover  a  few  pebbles,  and  here  are  whole  blocks 
falling  on  my  head !  The  grotesque  drummed  at  my  ears  and 
the  pathetic  was  in  convulsions  before  my  eyes.  From  whence 
I  draw,  or  rather  re-draw,  this   conclusion  :   you  should  never 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  151 

fear   being    exaggerated.     All    the   great  men    have    been    so, 
Michael  Angelo,  Rabelais,  Shakespeare,  Moliere.' 

Flaubert  for  the  sake  of  a  friend  could  put  up  with  a  bore 
in  spite  of  his  irritable  nerves  : — 

'  Yesterday  the  6th,  and  to-day  the  7th  of  July  1853  will  be 
celebrated  in  the  annals  of  my  existence  as  boredom.  Two  days 
of  Azvedo  !  Two  afternoons.  Two  dinners.  What  a  reptile  ! 
and  the  best  of  it  is,  this  dear  fellow  adores  me ;  he  embraced 
me  this  evening  on  leaving !  He  came  yesterday  at  eleven 
o'clock,  and  I  made  him  go  by  the  boat  at  seven;  not  knowing  how 
to  spend  the  time,  I  proposed  to  him  a  walk  in  the  forest ;  it  was 
splendid  weather,  his  aspect  was  mitigated  by  that  of  the  forest; 
and  in  fact,  I  was  not  too  bored !  but  it  is  when  one  is  with  him 
alone,  and  looks  at  him  !  To-day  at  four  o'clock  he  came  back 
with  Bouilhet,  whom  he  won't  leave,  and  who  is  made  ill  by  him. 
What  a  strange  thing !  for  at  the  bottom  the  poor  fellow  is  not 
a  fool,  he  has  sometimes  a  glimmer  of  genius  through  his  great 
rants,  and  he  possesses  one  very  rare  quality — to  wit,  enthusiasm 
(a  quality,  however,  which  has  more  to  do  with  his  blood,  his 
Spanish  descent,  than  his  individual  mind)  but  he  is  so  common, 
so  repulsive,  nervously  speaking,  that  if  he  had  rendered  you 
all  the  services  in  the  world,  you  could  not  love  him.  Then,  in 
what  does  being  agreeable  consist .''  What  is  this  evil,  subtle 
miasma,  that  emanates  from  an  individual,  and  makes  him 
unpleasant  to  you,  even  when  he  is  not  so.  What  is  the  reason 
of  that  ?  I  am  worrying  myself  to  find  out.  And  then  what  a 
dress  !  What  clothes  !  Threadbare  black  all  over  ;  low  shoes, 
grey  stockings,  a  coloured  shirt,  its  colour  disappearing  under 
complicated  patterns  ;  a  hangman's  beard  !  that  is  strong,  the 
beard  is  a  whole  universe  !  remember  this  great  doctrine  which 
I  have  this  moment  discovered.  Oh  heaven,  heaven,  have  we 
not  enough  moral  dirt  without  physical  dirt  ?  How  these 
creatures  make  one  love  beauty  !  Yes,  a  beautiful  face  is  a 
fine  thing,  a  beautiful  stuff,  beautiful  marble  is  fine,  the  flash 
of  gold,  the  lustre  of  satin,  a  green  bough  swinging  in  the  wind, 
a  great  ox  ruminating  in  the  grass,  a  flying  bird,  all  are  fine  ;  it 
is  only  man  who  is  ugly.  How  sad  that  all  is  !  He  makes  my 
brain  turn  !  and  to  say  that  if  I  were  blind,  I  should  perhaps 


152  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

like  him  better,  I  believe  that  these  repulsions  are  intimations 
from  Providence,  it  is  an  instinct  of  self  preservation,  which 
warns  us  to  be  on  our  guard,  and  I  am  killing  myself  in  the 
effort  to  find  out  in  Avhat  way  Azvedo  may  injure  me.' 

Upon  this,  the  Muse  took  up  her  parable  in  the  high 
moral  line  and  lectured  her  admirer,  with  the  following 
result : — 

'  Still  savage,  still  fierce,  still  undaunted,  and  passionate, 
what  a  strange  Muse  it  is  !  And  how  unjust  in  its  tempers  ! 
I  put  that  all  down  to  the  score  of  lyricism,  but  I  assure  you 
that  it  has  a  very  narrow  side,  and  even  bruises  sometimes,  dear 
good  Muse  !  Because  that  idiot  of  an  Azvedo  bored  me  two 
days  you  send  me  a  kind  of  vague  fulmination  against  him, 
against  myself,  against  eveiything.  But  I  assure  you  that  I 
am  quite  innocent  of  all  that ;  and,  in  the  first  place  I  did  not 
invite  him,  it  is  he,  who  of  his  own  accord,  came  back  the 
second  day ;  unless  one  took  him  by  the  shoulders,  it  was 
impossible  to  get  him  outside  the  door.  He  came  back  with 
Bouilhet,  and  he  wanted  nothing  more  than  to  come  for 
comfort.  As  for  him,  Bouilhet,  after  what  Azvedo  had  done, 
or  said  he  had  done,  for  Melaenis,  he  could  not  send  him  off 
brutally  either  ;  at  last  in  the  evening  I  breathe  out  my  bore- 
dom in  ten  lines  to  be  rid  of  it,  think  no  more  of  it,  then  I 
spoke  to  you  of  a  heap  of  other  things  better  and  higher  (of 
which  you  do  not  say  one  word)  and  you  send  me  back  in  answer 
a  kind  of  denunciation  in  four  pages,  as  if  I  adored  this 
gentleman,  made  much  of  him,  etc.,  and  abandoned  you  for  him  : 
you  will  admit  that  it  is  funny,  good  Muse,  and  this  is  the 
second  time  that  it  has  happened  !     What  a  child  you  are  ! ' 

The  fact  was — a  fact  that  Flaubert  did  not  see — that  the 
Muse  was  profoundly  jealous  of  Louis  Bouilhet ;  in  La 
Servante  she  openly  accuses  him  of  })romoting  the  breach 
between  her  and  Flaubert.  For  which,  if  he  were  respon- 
sible, he  would  deserve  our  best  thanks.  Azvedo  was  a 
symptom  of  Bouilhet^s  influence  over  Flaubert ;  that  was 
enough. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  153 

In  the  following  passage  Flaubert,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
describes  his  own  life  : — 

'  Yes — I  maintain  (and  this  should  be  for  me  a  practical 
dogma  in  the  artist's  life)  one  must  take  one's  existence  in  two 
parts  :  live  like  a  middle-class  man  and  think  like  a  demi-god. 

'  If  you  wish  to  seek  happiness  and  the  beautiful  at  the  same 
time,  you  will  not  reach  either ;  for  the  second  only  comes  by 
sacrifice ;  Art,  like  the  God  of  the  Jews,  delights  in  burnt 
offerings. 

'  Let  us  then  look  for  tranquillity  only,  let  us  ask  life  only  for 
an  arm-chair,  not  for  thrones  ;  for  sufficient,  not  for  intoxication. 
Passion  accommodates  itself  ill  to  that  long  patience,  which  the 
craft  demands.  Art  is  vast  enough  to  occupy  the  whole  of  a 
man ;  to  divert  anything  fx-om  it  is  almost  a  crime,  it  is  a  theft 
from  the  idea,  a  failure  of  duty.' 

Again  the  Muse  wishes  to  establish  closer  relations  : — 

'What  a  strange  creature  you  are,  my  dear  friend,  to  send 
me  diatribes  again,  as  my  chemist  would  say.  You  ask  me  for  a 
thing,  I  say  yes,  I  promise  it  you  again,  and  you  scold  again. 
Well — since  you  hide  nothing  from  me  (and  I  approve  of  this) 
I  do  not  conceal  from  you,  that  this  seems  to  me  a  fixed  idea 
with  you  ;  you  wish  to  establish  between  affections  of  a  different 
nature  a  connection  of  which  I  neither  see  the  sense  nor  the 
utility.  I  do  not  see  at  all,  in  what  way  the  civilities,  which 
you  do  me  at  Paris,  engage  my  mother  in  anything.  I  was  for 
three  yeai-s  a  visitor  at  the  Schlesingers,  where  she  never  set 
her  feet.  In  the  same  way  Bouilhet  has  been  coming  here  for 
eight  years  to  sleep,  dine,  and  lunch  eveiy  Sunday  without  his 
mother  having  been  even  once  revealed  to  us,  though  she 
comes  to  Rouen  nearly  every  month ;  and  I  assure  you,  that  my 
mother  is  not  in  the  least  shocked  by  it.  Lastly,  it  shall  be 
done  as  you  desire.  I  promise,  I  swear  to  you,  that  I  Avill  place 
your  I'easons  before  her,  and  that  I  will  beg  her  to  bring  it 
about  that  you  see  one  another.  As  for  the  rest ;  with  the  best 
intentions  in  the  world,  I  can  do  nothing ;  perhaps  you  will 
suit  one  another,  perhaps  you  will  dislike  one  another 
enormously.     The   good    woman    is   not    particularly  adhesive, 


154  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

and  she  has  given  up  seeing  not  only  all  her  old  acquaintances, 
but  even  her  friends. 

'  There  is  something  wrong  in  my  personality,  and  my 
vocation.  I  was  born  a  lyric,  and  I  do  not  write  verses.  I 
would  like  to  overwhelm  those  I  love  with  kindness,  and  I 
make  them  weep.  Now  Bouilhet ! — there  is  a  man !  What 
a  complete  nature !  If  I  were  capable  of  being  jealous  of 
anyone,  I  should  be  of  him  ;  with  the  depressing  life  that  he 
has  led,  and  the  slops  that  he  has  swallowed,  I  should  certainly 
be  an  idiot  by  now,  or  at  the  galleys,  or  hung  by  my  own  hands. 
Sufferings  from  outside  have  made  him  better,  that  is  the  way 
with  the  tall  forests,  they  grow  in  the  wind  and  the  dust, 
through  flint  and  granite,  while  the  garden  fruit  trees  with  all 
their  manure  and  straw  coverings  die  in  a  row  against  a  wall, 
and  in  the  face  of  the  sun.  Indeed  I  love  him  well,  that  is  all 
that  I  can  say  about  it,  and  never  mistrust  him. 

'  Do  you  know  what  I  was  talking  about  to  my  mother  all 
yesterday  evening  ?  About  you.  I  told  her  many  things,  that 
she  did  not  know,  or  at  least  that  she  only  half  guessed ;  she 
appreciates  you,  and  I  am  sure  that  this  winter  she  will  see  you 
with  pleasure.     So  that  question  is  settled.' 

The  Muse  was  not,  however,  pacified ;  and  in  the  midst  of 
criticisms  on  her  poems,  suggestions  for  their  improvement, 
praise  of  isolated  lines,  we  have  such  passages  as  the 
following : — 

'  Finally,  poor  dear  friend,  do  you  wish  me  to  disclose  to  you 
the  bottom  of  my  thoughts  ?  or  rather  to  open  to  you  the 
bottom  of  your  heart .''  I  think  that  your  love  is  on  the  decline. 
The  dissatisfaction,  the  suffering,  that  I  cause  you,  has  no  other 
origin,  for  such  as  I  am,  such  I  have  always  been.  But  now, 
you  see  me  better,  and  you  judge  me  reasonably  perhaps.  I 
know  nothing  of  it ;  but  still  when  one  loves  completely,  one 
loves  what  one  loves,  as  it  is,  with  its  faults,  and  its  monstro- 
sities, one  even  adores  its  mange,  dotes  on  its  hump,  breathes 
with  rapture  its  poisonous  breath.  It  is  the  same  way  with 
moral  deformities  ;  now  I  am  deformed,  low,  selfish,  etc.  Do 
you  know  that  will  all  end  in  making  me  unsupportably  proud  ? 
Always  blaming  me  as  j)eople  do.     I  do  not  believe  there  is  a 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  155 

mortal  on  the  earth,  who  is  less  approved  of  than  I,  but  I  will 
not  change.     I  will  not  reform. 

'  What  makes  you  think  that  I  did  not  care  very  much  about 
the  upshot  of  the  philosopher's  visit  ?  Because  I  could  not 
come  to  you  on  Wednesday  evening,  harassed  as  I  was  with 
business,  and  running  about.  Ah  !  know  you  that  I  have  never 
told  you  a  quarter  of  the  things  that  you  write  to  me,  I  who  am 
so  hard,  as  you  say,  and  have  not  the  shadow  of  an  affection  for 
you.  That  completely  breaks  you  down,  you  say  ;  and  me  too, 
and  more  than  I  say  or  will  ever  say.  But  when  one  writes  such 
things,  one  of  two  things  is  true ;  either  one  thinks  them,  or 
one  does  not  think  them ;  if  one  does  not  think  them,  it  is 
abominable,  and  if  one  only  expresses  one's  real  conviction  in 
words,  would  it  not  be  better  simply  to  shut  one's  door  to  people.' 

And  so  forth.  In  fact,  Flaubert's  patience  gave  way  at 
last.  This  quarrel  was  made  up  ;  so  was  another ;  but  the 
Muse  had  only  one  string  to  her  harp,  and  as  she  played 
on  it  very  often,  Flaubert  saw  that  there  was  no  alternative 
except  to  break  with  her  altogether,  or  marry  her.  The 
latter  M^as  impossible  if  he  were  to  continue  to  live,  as  he 
had  always  lived,  putting  art  in  the  first  place  in  his  life. 
The  woman  who  was  always  writing,  crying  for  more 
affection,  more  frequent  visits,  would  insist  on  entering  his 
study,  disturbing  his  whole  life.  Knowing  his  own  nervous 
temperament,  he  knew  that  he  would  make  the  Muse  a 
miserable  wife,  and,  through  his  own  impatience  of  suffering 
in  others,  himself  a  miserable  husband.     He  chose  wisely. 

Possibly  the  connection  began  with  an  insufficient 
appreciation  of  what  it  might  lead  to;  when  it  became 
clear  that  the  Muse  wished  to  make  it  permanent,  Flaubert 
did  his  honest  best  to  educate  her  up  to  the  level  of  being  a 
literary  companion  ;  he  failed  completely.  From  April  1854 
Louis  Bouilhet  took  her  place  as  chief  correspondent,  so  long 
as  the  friends  lived  apart.  Perhaps  she  was  right  to  be 
jealous  after  all. 


CHAPTER  XII 


MADAME    BOVARY 


When  Flaubert  was  sitting  in  the  study  at  Croisset  in  the 
summer  of  1846  with  Louis  Bouilhet  and  Maxime  Ducamp, 
and  the  question  of  their  literary  future  arose,  he  would 
say :  '  We  must  begin  with  a  thunderclap."*  He  did.  In 
1856  Madame  Bovary  was  published  in  the  Revue  de  Paris ; 
the  first  number  appeared  on  October  1st.  On  the  24th 
of  January  following  the  author  '  honoured  with  his  pre- 
sence "*  the  dock  of  the  sixth  chamber  of  the  criminal  adminis- 
tration. He  was  charged  with  an  outrage  on  morality  and 
religion.  The  prosecution  was  really  directed  against  the 
Revue  de  Paris,  which  had  taken  a  line  hostile  to  the  Govern- 
ment, and  had  already  been  twice  warned.  Flaubert  was 
acquitted  ;  but  the  verdict  was  modified  by  reservations  of  an 
uncomplimentary  character.  The  prosecution  was  attended 
by  the  usual  consequences ;  it  drew  attention  to  the  book, 
which  had  a  very  large  sale,  and  its  author  at  once  took  rank 
with  the  first  literary  men  in  France. 

While  in  one  sense  Flaubert  profited  by  the  action  brought 
against  him,  in  another  he  suffered  a  serious  injury.  Towards 
the  end  of  his  life  he  resented  being  spoken  of  as  the  author 
of  Madame  Bovary,  and  often  expressed  a  wish  to  buy  up 
all  the  remaining  copies,  and  suppress  the  publication.  He 
felt   that  his   work  had  been  misunderstood,  and  saw  that 

15C 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  157 

there  was  some  reason  for  the  misunderstanding ;  to  this  mis- 
understanding the  prosecution  had  contributed  by  drawing 
attention  exclusively  to  one  half  of  the  book,  and  ignoring 
the  other  half. 

We  have  seen  that  after  the  friends  had  condemned  the 
first  St.  Antlwny  to  the  fire,  they  had  recommended  Flaubert 
to  find  a  subject  which  would  leave  no  room  for  the  develop- 
ment of  his  exaggerated  lyrical  tendency,  and  they  had 
suggested  the  story  of  Delaunay.  The  details  of  this  story, 
according  to  Maxime  Ducamp,  were  as  follows.  Delaunay, 
a  country-bred  youth  of  no  ability,  had  been  at  school  at 
Rouen  with  Flaubert  and  Bouilhet ;  he  took  up  the  study 
of  medicine,  became  a  pupil  of  the  Pere  Flaubert,  passed 
examinations  which  qualified  him  to  practise  on  the  lowest 
grade  in  the  French  medical  profession,  as  an  '  officer  of 
health,'  and  settled  in  a  village  in  the  neighbourhood.  He 
first  married  an  elderly  woman,  who  was  supposed  to  have 
money  ;  and,  on  her  death,  a  young  woman  of  no  particular 
beauty  but  some  pretensions  to  education.  She  was  a  little 
yellow-haired  person,  with  a  poor  complexion,  and  a  dumpy 
figure,  but  an  extremely  seductive  voice  and  manner.  She 
seemed  to  be  perpetually  imploring  compassion.  She 
despised  her  husband,  found  other  admirers,  entered  on  a 
reckless  course  of  extravagance,  was  beaten  by  her  lovers, 
ruined  Delaunay,  and  poisoned  herself  just  at  the  moment 
when  it  seemed  that  he  must  become  aware  of  all  her 
iniquities  :  he  had  remained  blind  throughout.  Even  her 
death  and  the  subsequent  discoveries  did  not  destroy  his 
love  for  her  ;  he  sank  into  a  deep  melancholy,  and,  within  a 
year's  time,  took  a  fatal  dose  of  prussic  acid  also.  Such  was 
the  story  of  Delaunay.  We  can  imagine  Rudyard  Kipling 
or  Guy  de  Maupassant  rattling  it  off  for  us  in  a  dozen  pages, 
finishing  up  the  apparently  commonplace  narrative  with  a 


158  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

surprise  and  a  shudder.  It  is  not  the  kind  of  story  on 
which  we  would  expect  a  masterpiece  of  fiction  to  be  based  ; 
one  of  those  books  which  can  only  be  achieved  by  a  giant. 

In  one  of  Flauberfs  letters,  he  remarks  that  the  classics 
and  the  Middle  Ages  gave  us  the  cuckold,  who  was  a  comic 
character;  modern  romance  gives  us  adultery,  which  is  a 
serious  business ;  we  must  not  then  be  surprised  to  find  that 
in  his  hands  the  story  of  Delaunay  is  a  very  grave  matter. 

We  are  introduced  to  the  hero — for  if  the  book  has  a 
hero,  it  is  poor  Bovary — on  his  first  arrival  at  school,  an 
overgrown,  gawky,  neglected  lad,  who  had  to  take  a  place 
among  boys  smaller  than  himself.  The  usual  awkwardness 
of  a  new  boy  was  considerably  aggravated  by  the  fact  that 
he  possessed  a  new  cap.  '  It  was  one  of  those  head-pieces  of 
the  composite  order,  in  which  are  to  be  discovered  the 
elements  of  the  bear-skin,  the  Lancer''s  chapska,  the  wide-a- 
wake, the  otter-skin,  and  the  cotton  night-cap ;  one  of  those 
poor  things,  in  a  word,  whose  dumb  ugliness  has  depths  of 
expression  like  the  face  of  an  idiot.  Egg-like  and  puffed 
out  with  whalebone,  it  began  with  three  circular  sausages, 
then,  separated  by  a  red  band,  came  alternate  lozenges  of 
velvet  and  rabbit-skin  ;  after  that  a  kind  of  bag,  which 
ended  in  a  cardboard  polygon  covered  with  embroidery  in 
elaborate  needlework,  from  which  hung  at  the  end  of  a 
long  thin  cord  a  little  cross-bar  in  gold  thread  by  way  of 
tassel ;  it  was  new  ;  the  peak  was  shiny."" 

After  this,  a  description  of  the  mother  of  Bovary  is  super- 
fluous ;  such  a  cap  indicates  maternal  affection  in  large 
quantities,  free  from  the  control  of  tact  and  taste.  We  are 
not  surprised  to  learn  that  the  new  boy  is  an  only  son — his 
father  was  a  worthless,  retired  army-surgeon,  who  had  used 
his  dashing  appearance  to  secure  as  his  wife  a  middle-aged, 
middle-class  woman  with  money.    The  lady,  rudely  wakened 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  159 

from  her  dreams  of  love,  took  the  management  of  her  affairs 
into  her  own  hands,  and  concentrated  all  her  affections  upon 
her  boy,  Avhom  she  did  her  best  to  spoil,  and  sent  to  school 
too  late. 

In  spite  of  the  unpromising  commencement  of  his  school 
career,  young  Bovary  escaped  the  extremity  of  horrors  which 
might  be  expected  to  attend  on  so  unprepossessing  a  youth  ; 
owing  to  a  certain  unobtrusive  strength  and  simplicity, 
which  disarmed  his  schoolfellows,  and  an  aimless  dogged 
industry,  which  won  the  respect  of  his  teachers.  As  he  had 
been  sent  to  school  too  late,  so  he  was  withdrawn  too  early, 
and  consigned  to  solitary  lodgings,  provisioned  from  home, 
in  which  he  pursued  the  study  of  medicine.  When  the  time 
came  he  failed  to  pass  his  examination ;  the  time  which  should 
have  been  given  to  study  had  been  devoted  to  dominoes  ; 
his  very  vices  were  profoundly  meaningless  and  contemptible. 
On  a  second  attempt,  having  learned  the  answers  to  a  large 
number  of  questions  by  heart  under  the  direction  of  a 
skilled  coach,  Bovary  was  more  fortunate.  Then  came  the 
question  of  placing  him.  His  mother  found  a  suitable 
practice  at  the  small  town  of  Tostes,  near  Rouen,  and  a 
suitable  wife  in  the  person  of  a  middle-aged  widow  of 
Dieppe,  reputed  to  be  provided  with  means,  and  to  whose 
hand  there  were  several  aspirants.  'To  attain  her  ends 
Mme.  Bovary  was  obliged  to  eject  them  all,  and  she  even 
showed  remarkable  skill  in  counteracting  the  wiles  of  a  pork- 
butcher,  who  was  supported  by  the  priests."'  The  marriage 
did  not  bring  Bovary  much  satisfaction.  '  His  wife  was  the 
master ;  he  had  to  say  this,  not  to  say  that,  before  people ; 
to  fast  on  Fridays,  dress  as  she  thought  good,  dun  the 
patients  who  did  not  pay  up,  according  to  her  orders.'  '  In 
the  evenings,  when  Charles  came  back,  she  put  her  long  thin 
arms  out  from  under  the  sheets,  passed  them  around  his 


160  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

neck,  and  having  made  him  sit  on  the  edge  of  the  bed, 
began  to  tell  him  her  troubles :  he  forgot  her,  he  loved 
another  !  People  had  been  quite  right  to  tell  her  that  she 
would  be  unhappy.  And  she  would  finish  up  by  asking  him 
for  some  syrup  for  her  cough  and  a  little  more  love.**  Nor 
was  the  good  lady  without  some  reason  for  her  jealousy.  A 
well-to-do  farmer  in  the  neighbourhood,  a  widower  living 
with  an  only  daughter,  chanced  to  break  his  leg  ;  Bovary 
was  called  in  and  successfully  reduced  the  fracture — a  very 
simple  one.  The  father  was  astounded  at  the  skill  of  his 
medical  man,  the  daughter  no  less  so  :  his  visits  became 
vranecessarily  frequent.  At  this  juncture  it  was  suddenly 
discovered  that  the  widow  of  Dieppe  had  exaggerated  the 
amount  of  her  property ;  a  terrific  scene  ensued  between  her 
and  Bo  vary  ""s  mother.  '  Eight  days  afterwards,  as  she  was 
hanging  out  linen  in  her  courtyard,  she  was  taken  with  a 
spitting  of  blood,  and  the  following  day,  while  Charles  had 
his  back  turned  to  draw  the  window  curtains,  she  said  :  "  Oh, 
my  God  ! ""  uttered  a  sigh,  and  fainted.  She  was  dead. 
What  an  amazing  thing  !  "*  '  When  all  was  ended  at  the 
cemetery,  Charles  went  home.  He  found  nobody  down- 
stairs ;  he  went  up  to  the  first  floor,  in  their  room  he  saw 
her  dress  still  hanging  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  ;  then  leaning 
against  the  bureau,  he  remained  till  evening  lost  in  a  dream 
of  sorrow.     After  all,  she  had  loved  him."* 

The  Pere  Rouault,  grateful  for  the  restoration  of  his 
health,  took  pains  to  comfort  the  young  widower ;  he  had 
himself  passed  through  misfortune,  and  Charles  became 
a  frequent  visitor  at  Les  Bertaux.  The  inevitable  duly 
followed.  Charles  married  Mile.  Rouault.  The  young  lady 
was  distinguished  by  an  elegance  not  to  be  expected  in  the 
daughter  of  a  country  farmer :  she  had  been  brought  up  in 
a  convent  at  Rouen  in  a  manner  rather  above  her  station. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  161 

When  her  father  first  took  her  to  school,  they  had  dined  in 
a  restaurant  where  the  plates  were  ornamented  with  edifying 
scenes  from  the  life  of  Mademoiselle  de  la  Valliere  and 
Louis  XIV.  The  routine  of  the  convent  at  first  charmed 
her.  '  When  she  went  to  confession  she  invented  little  sins 
in  order  to  stay  longer  on  her  knees  in  the  dusk,  with  her 
hands  joined,  her  face  close  to  the  grating  and  the  whispering 
priest.'  '  Instead  of  following  the  mass  she  used  to  look  at 
the  sacred  pictures  in  her  book  with  their  azure  borders, 
and  she  loved  the  sick  lamb,  the  heart  pierced  with  pointed 
arrows,  or  Jesus  falling  under  the  cross  as  He  walks.  She 
tried  by  way  of  mortification  to  remain  a  whole  day  without 
eating.  She  racked  her  brains  for  some  vow  to  accomplish."* 
But  the  convent  introduced  her  also  to  other  than  religious 
emotions.  Every  month  an  old  maid  used  to  come  and 
spend  a  week  there,  overhauling  and  repairing  the  linen ; 
she  was  the  daughter  of  a  noble  family  ruined  by  the 
Revolution,  and  was  protected  by  the  Archbishop,  owing 
to  the  devotion  of  her  noble  ancestors  to  the  Church.  She 
not  only  knew  all  the  current  gossip,  and  was  a  mine  of 
songs  and  tales  of  old-world  gallantries,  but  she  also 
smuggled  romances  in  the  pocket  of  her  apron.  'There 
was  nothing  but  love,  lovers,  ladies,  persecuted  maidens 
swooning  in  lonely  pavilions,  postilions  killed  at  every 
relay,  horses  falling  dead  on  every  page,  sombre  forests, 
agitations  of  the  heart,  oaths,  sobs,  tears,  and  kisses,  boats 
and  moonlights,  nightingales  in  thickets,  gentlemen  brave 
as  lions,  gentle  as  lambs,  virtuous  as  nobody  ever  was, 
always  well  dressed,  and  weeping  like  the  urns  on  tomb- 
stones.'' Her  school-fellows  used  to  bring  copies  of  the 
Keepsake  back  after  the  holidays,  '  full  of  portraits  of  lovely 
ladies  in  luxurious  surroundings,  of  landscapes  in  which 
palms,  pines,  fir-trees,  lions,  tigers,  minarets,  Roman  ruins, 

L 


162  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

crouching  camels  were  framed  in  a  well-kept  virgin  forest, 
through  which  was  seen  a  moonlit  lake,  with  floating  swans."* 
The  very  songs  which  she  learned  helped  to  intensify  the 
romantic  unrealities  of  the  world  of  her  imagination. 
'  When  her  mother  died,  she  wept  abundantly  for  the  first 
few  days.  She  had  a  funeral  card  made  for  her  with  the 
hair  of  the  defunct,  and,  in  a  letter  which  she  sent  to  Les 
Bertaux,  full  of  melancholy  reflections  on  life,  she  begged 
to  be  buried  hereafter  in  the  same  tomb.  Her  worthy 
father  thought  she  was  ill,  and  came  to  see  her.  Emma 
was  inwardly  delighted  to  feel  herself  suddenly  arrived  at 
that  rare  ideal  of  pallid  existence  which  mediocre  hearts 
never  reach.'  In  due  time  her  grief  evaporated,  and  then 
she  began  to  disappoint  the  nuns,  who  had  hoped  to  retain 
her,  'This  mind  positive  in  the  midst  of  its  enthusiasms, 
which  had  loved  the  Church  for  its  flowers,  music  for  the 
words  of  songs,  literature  for  its  excitement  of  the  emotions, 
rose  in  rebellion  before  the  mysteries  of  faith,  and  in  the 
same  way  was  still  more  irritated  by  the  conventual 
discipline,  a  thing  antipathetic  to  her  constitution."'  She 
was  removed  from  the  convent,  and  went  to  keep  house  for 
her  father ;  pleased  at  first  with  the  responsibility  and  the 
management  of  servants,  she  soon  began  to  feel  herself 
buried  in  the  country,  and  regretted  her  convent. 

Charles  Bovary  had  appeared  to  her  as  a  man  of  science, 
a  being  quite  superior  to  the  coarse  rustics,  whose  awkward 
addresses  were  the  only  possible  interruption  to  the 
monotony  of  her  life  at  the  farm.  She  saw  in  him  a 
deliverer. 

The  marriage  was  celebrated  with  a  prodigious  feasting, 
a  riot  of  the  material  side  of  life,  violently  contrasting  with 
the  moonlights  of  Emma"'s  romantic  imagining.  The  honey- 
moon soon  waned,  had  been  wanting  in  flavour;  there  had 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  163 

been  no  travelling  in  those  operatic  landscapes  of  which  her 
mind  was  full ;  perhaps  this  was  the  cause  of  the  failure. 
'It  seemed  to  her  that  certain  spots  on  the  earth  must 
produce  happiness,  like  a  plant  peculiar  to  one  soil,  and 
which  grows  badly  anywhere  else.  Why  could  she  not 
lean  on  the  balcony  of  a  Swiss  chalet,  or  harbour  her 
melancholy  in  a  Scotch  bothie,  with  a  husband  clothed  in 
a  black  velvet  coat  with  long  skirts,  wearing  soft  boots,  a 
pointed  hat,  and  lace  cuffs  ?' 

Charles,  on  the  contrary,  was  enraptured  ;  each  of  Emma''s 
little  domestic  refinements  surprised  him  more  than  the  last ; 
she  even  talked  of  finger-glasses  for  dessert.  He  was  never 
weary  of  watching  her  draw,  hearing  her  play  the  piano, 
'the  quicker  her  fingers  ran  over  the  keys,  the  more 
astounded  he  was.""  Meanwhile  his  conversation  was  not 
equally  interesting  to  his  wife ;  '  when  at  Rouen  he  had 
never  cared  to  go  to  the  theatre  to  see  the  actors  from 
Paris ;  he  could  neither  swim,  nor  fence,  nor  use  a  pistol ; 
and  then  his  boots  were  appalling  in  shape  and  size.  She 
recited  impassioned  verses  to  him  in  the  garden  by  moon- 
light, sang  melancholy  slow  music ;  found  herself  afterwards 
as  calm  as  before  those  experiments,  and  Charles  no  more 
amorous  than  usual ;  before  long  she  began  to  ask  herself 
why  she  had  ever  married,' 

These  mournful  reveries  were  interrupted  by  an  event. 
The  Marquis  de  Vaubyessard,  a  local  magnate  contemplating 
political  life,  determined  to  give  a  ball.  Charles  had 
attended  him  for  some  small  ailment  successfully;  he  had 
called,  seen  Madame  Bovary,  found  that  her  manners  were 
good ;  she  and  Bovary  were  invited  to  the  ball,  and  to  spend 
the  night  at  Vaubyessard. 

The  stateliness  of  the  house,  its  historic  pictures,  an  aged 
duke  reputed  to  have  been  the  lover  of  Marie  Antoinette, 


164  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

inclined  Madame  Bovary  to  believe  that  here  was  her  world  of 
romance  realised  ;  she  discovered  herself  to  be  better-looking 
than  many  of  the  ladies,  at  least  as  well-mannered.  Nor 
was  there  wanting  a  suggestion  of  moral  corruption ;  she 
saw  a  lady  skilfully  pass  a  little  note  to  a  gentleman,  she 
waltzed  with  a  Vicomte,  became  giddy,  found  herself  leaning 
in  his  arms.  The  next  day  on  the  way  home,  while  stopping 
to  re-arrange  the  harness,  Charles  picked  up  an  embroidered 
cigar-case.  The  Vicomte  had  shortly  before  passed  them  on 
horseback ;  doubtless  the  case  was  his,  it  was  adorned  with 
a  coronet.     Emma  annexed  and  kept  this  cigar-case. 

After  this  Madame  Bovary  gave  way  to  a  deeper  melan- 
choly ;  she  spent  her  time  reading  the  works  of  Eugene  Sue, 
of  Balzac,  of  Georges  Sand.  Paris  floated  before  her  mind ; 
she  even  bought  a  map  of  the  town,  and  amused  herself 
with  making  imaginary  expeditions.  She  added  to  the 
small  elegancies  of  her  establishment,  'bought  a  blotting- 
book,  stationery  case,  pen-tray,  envelopes,  although  she 
had  no  one  to  write  to ;  she  wished  to  travel,  or  return  to 
the  convent ;  she  longed  at  one  and  the  same  time  to  die, 
and  to  live  at  Paris.'' 

After  a  while  she  began  to  neglect  everything,  sank  into 
an  aimless  sadness,  became  irritable :  '  some  days  she 
chattered  with  a  feverish  exaltation ;  this  state  of  excite- 
ment was  all  of  a  sudden  succeeded  by  a  long  torpor,  and  she 
remained  without  speaking  or  moving.  She  was  then  brought 
round  by  sprinkling  a  bottle  of  eau-de-Cologne  on  her  arms.** 

She  continually  complained  of  Tostes,  and  Charles  there- 
fore imagined  that  the  place  was  unsuitable  to  her  health ; 
he  looked  out  for  another  practice,  and  found  it  in  a  large 
village  or  small  town  called  Yonville-FAbbaye.  In  making 
preparations  for  her  departure  Emma  came  across  her 
wedding  bouquet.     She  burned  it. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  165 

English  travellers  who  know  the  appearance  of  the  country 
round  Amiens  need  no  description  of  the  melancholy  land- 
scape which  surrounds  Yonville-FAbbaye ;  the  character  of 
the  sluggish  Somme  extends  to  its  tributaries  and  the 
adjacent  streams.  For  a  picture  of  the  place  itself  we  need 
not  go  far  from  home ;  Thame,  Stony  Stratford,  Olney, 
Calne,  Devizes,  Leominster,  and  hundreds  of  other  English 
comitry  towns,  are  neither  more  nor  less  than  Yonville. 
The  place  was  duly  provided  with  a  church,  a  priest,  a 
smithy,  market-house,  mayor,  hotel,  restaurant,  lawyer,  but 
its  chief  glory  was  its  chemist  and  druggist :  '  what  attracts 
the  eye  most  is  the  shop  of  M.  Homais,  opposite  the  Golden 
Lion.  Above  all,  when  its  large  lamp  is  lit  in  the  evening, 
and  the  green  and  red  bottles  that  embellish  its  front 
throw  their  twin  illuminations  far  away  on  the  ground,  like 
Bengal  lights,  and  the  shadow  of  the  druggist  leaning  on 
his  desk  is  seen  between  them.  His  house  from  top  to 
bottom  is  placarded  with  inscriptions  written  in  English 
hand,  romid-hand,  in  large  type :  "  Vichy  Water,  Seltzer 
Water,  Bareges  Water,  Cleansing  Rubbers,  RaspaiPs  Medi- 
cines, Ai'abian  Racahout,  Darcefs  Pastilles,  Regnaulfs 
Electuary,  Bandages,  Baths,  Medicated  Chocolate,'"  etc., 
and  the  sign,  which  occupies  the  whole  width  of  the  shop, 
bears  in  letters  of  gold :  "  Homais,  Pharmacist."  Then  at 
the  back  of  the  shop,  behind  the  great  scales  riveted  to  the 
counter,  the  word  "Laboratory""  is  revealed  above  a  glass 
door,  which  once  more  repeats  half-way  up  "  Homais ""  in 
gilt  letters  on  a  black  ground.'' 

Yonville  is  twenty-four  miles  from  Rouen,  and  every  day 
an  omnibus  used  to  run  backwards  and  forwards  from  the 
Golden  Lion,  of  which  the  widow  Lefran^ois  was  proprie- 
tress. On  the  evening  on  which  the  Bovary  family  were  to 
arrive  M.   Homais  awaited   them   at  the  inn :    '  a  man  in 


166  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

green  leather  slippers,  somewhat  marked  with  small-pox, 
wearing  a  green  velvet  cap  with  a  gold  tassel,  was  warming 
his  back  at  the  fire.  His  face  expressed  nothing  but  self- 
complacency.' 

The  company  assembled  at  the  Golden  Lion  included 
Binet,  the  collector  of  taxes,  an  ex-carbineer,  a  very 
methodical  personage,  who  spent  most  of  his  time  at  a 
turning-lathe,  and  M.  Leon  Dupuis,  a  young  man  lodging 
with  Honiais,  and  articled  clerk  to  M.  Guillaumin,  the 
lawyer.  These  persons  dined  there  regularly.  On  the 
arrival  of  the  Hirondelle  with  the  Bovarys,  dinner  was  at 
once  served ;  young  Duj)uis  and  Homais  joined  the  party 
of  the  new-comers ;  Homais  asking  permission  to  wear  his 
cap,  for  fear  of  neuralgia.  He  proceeded  forthwith  to 
introduce  Bovary  to  his  new  practice :  '  for  the  rest  the 
prosecution  of  Medicine  is  not  very  troublesome  in  our 
country ;  for  the  state  of  the  roads  permits  the  use  of  the 
carriage,  and,  generally  speaking,  the  people  pay  satis- 
factorily, the  agriculturists  being  well  off.  In  the  strictly 
medical  connection,  apart  from  the  ordinary  cases  of 
enteritis,  bronchitis,  biliary  affections,  etc.,  we  have  from 
time  to  time  intermittent  fevers  at  the  period  of  harvest, 
but  in  general  few  grave  illnesses,  nothing  specially  to  be 
noticed,  if  it  is  not  a  large  number  of  cold  humours,  which 
are  doubtless  due  to  the  deplorable  hygienic  conditions  of 
the  dwellings  of  our  peasantry.  Ah !  you  will  find  many 
prejudices  to  contend  against,  M.  Bovary,  much  obstinate 
adherence  to  routine,  against  which  all  the  efforts  of  your 
science  will  daily  have  to  stumble ;  for  recourse  is  still  had 
to  prayers,  relics,  the  clergyman,  rather  than  come  naturally 
to  the  physician  or  the  druggist.  The  climate  however  is 
not,  so  to  say,  bad,  and  we  even  reckon  in  our  community 
some   nonagenarians.       The    thermometer   (I    have    myself 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  167 

taken  observations)  goes  down  in  winter  to  seven  degrees 
Fahrenheit,  and  in  the  hot  season  reaches  twenty-five  to 
thirty  degrees  Centigrade  at  the  most,  which  gives  us 
twenty-four  degrees  Reaumur  as  a  maximum,  otherwise 
fifty-four  Fahrenheit  (Enghsh  reckoning),  not  more  ! — (note, 
30  Centigrade  is  really  85  Fahrenheit — Homais  uses  his 
figures  at  random) — and,  in  fact,  we  are  sheltered  from  the 
north  winds  by  the  forest  of  Argueil  on  one  side,  from  the 
west  winds  on  the  other  by  the  hillside  of  Saint-Jean ;  and 
yet  this  heat,  which  is  caused  by  the  watery  vapour  given 
off  by  the  river,  and  the  presence  of  considerable  numbers 
of  cattle  in  our  meadows  who  exhale,  as  you  know,  much 
ammonia,  that  is  to  say,  azote,  hydrogen  and  oxygen  (no, 
azote  and  hydrogen  only),  and  which,  drawing  to  itself  the 
"humus"  of  the  earth,  confounding  all  these  different 
emanations,  uniting  them  in  one  bundle,  so  to  speak,  and 
combining  of  itself  with  the  electricity  spread  in  the 
atmosphere,  where  there  is  any,  might  in  the  long-run,  as 
in  tropical  countries,  engender  insalubrious  miasmas.  This 
heat,  I  say,  is  tempered  precisely  on  the  side  from  which  it 
comes,  or  rather  from  which  it  would  come,  that  is  to  say 
on  the  south  side,  by  the  south-east  winds,  which,  being 
cooled  of  themselves  by  passing  over  the  Seine,  reach  us 
sometimes  all  of  a  sudden  like  blasts  from  Russia.' 

Meanwhile  M.  Leon  Dupuis  and  Madame  Bovary  have 
discovered  that  they  have  the  same  taste  in  sunsets,  in 
books,  the  same  discontent  with  the  things  that  immediately 
surround  them.  'It  is  so  pleasant,"*  observed  the  clerk, 
'  among  the  disillusionments  of  life  to  be  able  to  repose 
upon  the  ideal  of  noble  characters,  of  pure  affections,  and  of 
pictures  of  happiness.  As  for  me,  living  here  out  of  the 
world,  it  is  my  only  distraction,  but  Yonville  offers  so  few 
resources  V 


168  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Like  Tostes,  doubtless,*'  replied  Emma,  '  and  so  I  always 
subscribed  to  a  lending  library/ 

'  If  Madame  Bovary  will  do  me  the  honour  to  make  use  of 
it,'  said  the  druggist,  who  had  just  heard  the  last  words,  *I 
have  myself  a  library  at  her  disposal  composed  of  the  best 
authors,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Delille,  Walter  Scott,  the 
Echoes  of  the  Magazines,  etc.,  and  I  am  further  in  receipt 
of  several  periodicals,  among  them  the  Rouen  Beacon  daily, 
having  the  advantage  of  being  its  correspondent  for  the 
centres  of  Buchy,  Forges,  Neufchatel,  Yonville,  and  the 
neighbourhood."'  In  course  of  time  the  new  arrivals  with- 
drew from  the  fascinations  of  the  Golden  Lion  and  Homais 
to  their  own  house,  where,  although  they  found  everything 
in  confusion,  Emma  hoped  to  enjoy  a  better  future.  It 
could  not  be  worse  than  the  past. 

Things,  however,  did  not  go  particularly  well  at  first  with 
either  member  of  the  Bovary  household  at  Yonville.  Clients 
were  some  time  in  appearing,  and  the  interested  friendship 
of  M.  Homais  failed  to  compensate  for  their  absence. 
Though  M.  Homais  was  the  victim  of  an  irresistible  impulse 
to  concern  himself  with  other  peoplc''s  affairs  in  general,  he 
had  a  particular  reason  for  being  friendly  to  Bovary ;  he 
had  infringed  the  law  which  forbids  unlicensed  persons  to 
exercise  medical  functions,  and  had  been  comminated  by 
the  Procm-eur  du  Roi  at  Rouen. 

Meanwhile  Madame  Bovary  became  a  mother ;  she  had 
wished  for  a  son,  who  should  be  strong  and  swarthy,  and 
called  George,  but  fate  determined  that  her  first-born 
should  be  a  daughter.  She  consoled  herself  for  the  dis- 
appointment by  seeking  for  a  sufficiently  romantic  name  for 
the  infant,  such  as  Amanda,  Galsuinda,  Yseult,  or  Leocadia. 
'M.  Homais,  for  his  part,  had  a  predilection  for  all  those 
names  which  recalled  a  sreat  man,  an  illustrious  action,  or 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  169 

a  noble  thought,  and  it  was  in  obedience  to  this  system  that 
he  had  baptized  his  own  four  children ;  thus,  Napoleon 
represented  Glory,  Franklin  Liberty,  Irene  was  perhaps 
a  concession  to  romanticism,  but  Athaliah  was  certainly  a 
homage  to  the  most  immortal  masterpiece  of  the  French 
stage.'  Eventually,  the  child  was  called  Bertha,  Madame 
Bovary  having  heard  this  name  addressed  by  the  Marchioness 
to  a  young  lady  at  Vaubyessard. 

The  child  was  put  out  to  nurse,  after  the  French  fashion ; 
the  foster-mother.  Mere  Rolet,  a  labourer's  wife,  lived  in  the 
outskirts  of  Yonville,  and  Madame  Bovary,  on  her  convales- 
cence, paid  a  visit  to  her  child.  She  happened  to  encounter 
M.  Leon  Dupuis  on  her  way,  whose  escort  she  accepted.  From 
this  time  Madame  Bovary  became  the  divinity  of  M.  Leon's 
dreams ;  she  had  also  awakened  sentiments  of  tender  adora- 
tion in  the  breast  of  Justin,  a  youth  distantly  related  to  M. 
Homais,  who  fulfilled  many  and  various  functions  in  the 
establishment  of  that  luminary  of  science. 

Homais'  benevolent  attentions  to  the  house  of  Bovary 
continued ;  he  would  come  in  during  dinner,  and  seat  himself 
at  the  side  of  the  table.  '  He  used  to  ask  the  doctor  for 
news  of  his  patients,  and  the  latter  would  consult  him  as 
to  the  probabilities  of  payment.  Then  they  would  talk  of 
"  what  there  was  in  the  paper."  Homais,  by  this  hour  of 
the  day,  knew  it  almost  by  heart,  and  he  repeated  it,  word 
for  word,  with  the  leaders  of  the  journalists,  and  all  the 
stories  of  disasters  that  had  happened  in  France  or  abroad. 
But,  the  subject  running  dry,  he  did  not  refrain  from  giving 
vent  to  some  observations  on  the  dishes  that  he  saw.  Some- 
times even,  half-rising,  he  would  delicately  point  out  to 
Madame  Bovary  the  tenderest  morsel,  or,  turning  to  the 
maid,  addressed  advice  to  her  on  the  manipulation  of 
hashes  and  the  hygiene  of  seasonings ;  he  talked  aromas, 


170  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

osmazone,  juices,  and  gelatine  in  a  way  to  make  one  giddy. 
His  head,  moreover,  being  more  full  of  recipes  than  his  shop 
was  of  bottles,  Homais  excelled  in  making  quantities  of 
preserves,  vinegars,  and  sweet  liqueurs ;  he  knew,  too,  all  the 
last  inventions  in  economical  stoves,  with  the  art  of  keeping 
cheeses  and  doctoring  sick  wines."* 

On  Sunday  evenings  Madame  Homais  was  'at  home.' 
The  Bovarys  attended  regularly.  Leon  also ;  there  were 
seldom  other  guests.  After  a  round  game,  Charles  and 
Homais  would  play  at  dominoes,  while  Leon  read  poetry  to 
Emma.  Thus  there  gradually  grew  up  confidential  relations 
between  the  young  clerk  and  the  doctor''s  wife ;  she  took  a 
maternal  interest  in  his  aifairs,  presented  him  with  a  warm 
rug ;  meanwhile  Leon  tortured  himself  to  find  a  suitable 
opportunity  to  declare  his  passion.  At  this  period  Madame 
Bovary  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  certain  M.  Lheureux, 
a  haberdasher  and  upholsterer  of  Yonville,  who  not  only 
offered  his  goods  but  long  credit ;  he  would  even  advance 
money,  if  necessary.  For  the  present  Ennna  kept  him  at  a 
distance. 

Eventually  Madame  Bovary  divined  the  passion  of  her 
young  admirer,  and  discovered  that  her  own  heart  was  also 
touched ;  she  proceeded  to  indulge  herself  in  the  luxury  of 
a  romantic  virtue. 

'  She  heard  steps  on  the  staircase  ;  it  was  Leon.  She  got  up, 
and  took  the  first  of  a  pile  of  dusters  from  the  table,  which  were 
there  to  be  hemmed.    She  seemed  very  busy  when  he  appeared. 

'The  conversation  was  desultory,  Madame  Bovary  dropping 
it  every  minute ;  while  he  stayed  there  entirely  awkward. 
Seated  on  a  low  chair  near  the  fireplace,  he  turned  the  ivory 
workcase  in  his  fingers ;  she  pushed  her  needle  on  from  time  to 
time,  smoothed  out  the  creases  in  the  stuff  with  her  nail.  She 
did  not  speak  ;  he  held  his  tongue,  captivated  by  her  silence,  as 
he  would  have  been  by  her  words. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  171 

'  "  Poor  fellow  !  "  thought  she. 

'  "  Why  doesn't  she  like  me  ?  "  he  asked  himself. 

'  Leon,  however,  ended  by  saying  that  he  must  one  of  these 
days  go  to  Rouen  on  office  business.  "  Your  subscription  at  the 
music-seller's  is  out ;  shall  I  renew  it  ?  " 

'•'No,"  she  replied. 

'  "  Why  ?  " 

'"Because "  and  tightening   her   lips,  she  slowly   drew 

out  a  long  needleful  of  grey  thread. 

'This  work  irritated  Leon.  Emma's  fingers  seemed  to  get 
sore  at  the  end  from  it ;  a  gallant  phrase  came  into  his  head, 
but  he  did  not  venture  on  it. 

'  "  Then  you  give  it  up  ?  "  he  resumed. 

'"What?"  said  she  sharply.  "The  music?  Oh,  heavens ! 
Yes  !  Have  I  not  my  house  to  keep,  my  husband  to  attend  to, 
a  thousand  things,  numbers  of  duties,  which  come  before 
that  ? " 

'She  looked  at  the  clock.  Charles  was  late.  Then  she 
played  the  part  of  the  anxious  wife.  Two  or  three  times  even 
she  repeated : 

' "  He  is  so  good  !  " 

'  The  clerk  had  an  affection  for  M.  Bovary.  But  this  tender- 
ness in  his  direction  surprised  him  disagreeably  :  none  the  less 
he  continued  his  praises,  which,  he  said,  he  heard  everybody 
utter,  above  all  the  chemist. 

' "  Ah  !  he  is  a  fine  man,"  resumed  Emma. 

' "  Surely,"  replied  the  clerk. 

'  And  he  began  to  speak  of  Madame  Homais,  whose  neglected 
toilette  generally  formed  a  subject  of  amusement  for  them. 

'"What  does  that  matter?"  interrupted  Emma.  "A  good 
mother  does  not  concern  herself  about  her  dress." 

'  Then  she  relapsed  into  silence. 

'  It  was  the  same  on  the  following  day ;  her  conversation, 
her  manners,  everything  changed.  She  was  observed  to  take 
her  housekeeping  more  to  heart,  to  go  to  church  regularly, 
and  to  rule  her  servant  with  greater  strictness. 

'  She  took  Bertha  away  from  the  nurse.  Felicite  used  to 
bring  her  in,  when  there  were  visitors,  and  Madame  Bovary 
would  undress  her,  in  order  to  show  her  limbs.     She  declared 


172  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

she  adored  children ;  she  was  her  comfort,  her  joy,  her  folly, 
and  she  accompanied  her  caresses  with  lyrical  overflowings, 
which  would  have  reminded  any  but  the  good  folk  of  Yon- 
ville  of  La  Sachette  in  Notre  Dame  de  Paris' 

As  she  devoted  herself  to  her  household  and  her  child, 
so  Madame  Bovary  also  devoted  herself  to  her  husband. 
Charles  was  never  so  well  looked  after  as  at  this  period.  But 
a  reaction  followed,  and  the  nervous  attacks  returned.  Emma 
again  believed  herself  to  be  miserable. 

One  evening  the  tinkling  of  the  Angelus  recalled  her 
convent  days  to  her  ;  she  rose  and  walked  to  the  church, 
'  longing  for  devotion  in  some  form,  no  matter  what,  pro- 
vided she  might  absorb  her  whole  soul  in  it,  that  in  it  her 
whole  existence  might  disappear.' 

In  the  churchyard  a  number  of  boys  were  playing  ;  they 
were  a  confirmation  class  waiting  for  the  priest. 

'  "  Where  is  the  clergyman  ?  "  Madame  Bovary  asked  a  young 
boy,  who  was  amusing  himself  with  shaking  the  turnstile  on  its 
slack  pivot. 

'  "  He  is  just  coming,"  he  replied. 

'  In  fact  the  door  of  the  presbytery  grated ;  the  Abbe  Bour- 
nisien  appeared ;  the  children  fled  into  the  church  headlong. 

'"Those  rascals!"  muttered  the  ecclesiastic;  "always  the 
same  ! " 

'And  picking  up  a  tattered  catechism,  over  which  he  had 
just  stumbled  : 

'  "  They  respect  nothing  ! " 

'  But  as  soon  as  he  perceived  Madame  Bovary  : 

'"Excuse  me,"  said  he,  "I  did  not  recognise  you." 

'  He  stuffed  the  catechism  into  his  pocket,  and  stopped,  con- 
tinuing to  swing  the  heavy  key  of  the  sacristy  between  two 
fingers. 

'  The  glow  of  the  setting  sun,  which  fell  full  on  his  face, 
made  the  stuff  of  his  cassock  look  shabby,  shiny  at  the  elbows, 
as  it  was,  frayed  at  the  edges.  Spots  of  grease  and  snufF 
followed  the  line  of  little  buttons  on  his  broad  chest ;  and  they 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  173 

became  more  numerous  the  further  they  were  from  his  collar, 
where  rested  the  abundant  folds  of  his  red  skin^  spotted  with 
yellow  blotches,  which  disappeared  in  the  coarse  greyish 
hairs  on  his  chin.  He  had  just  finished  dinner,  and  breathed 
noisily. 

' "  How  are  you  .^ ''  he  added. 

'  "  Not  very  well,"  replied  Emma ;  "  I  am  out  of  health." 

'"Well,  well !  So  am  I,"  replied  the  clergyman.  "  This  first 
heat  is  astoundingly  enervating,  is  it  not .''  Still,  you  know, 
it  cannot  be  otherwise  ;  we  are  born  to  suffering,  as  St.  Paul 
says.     But  what  does  M.  Bovary  think  about  it .'' " 

' "  He  ! "  she  said,  with  a  contemptuous  gesture. 

' "  What ! "  resumed  the  good  fellow  in  amazement ;  "  he  does 
not  prescribe  for  you  ?  " 

'"Ah!"  said  Emma;  "it  is  not  earthly  remedies  that  I 
require." 

'  But  the  clergyman  from  time  to  time  looked  into  the 
church,  where  all  the  boys,  kneeling  in  a  row,  kept  shoving 
one  another  with  their  shoulders,  and  falling  over  like  a  pack  of 
cards. 

'"  I  should  like  to  know  ..."  she  resumed. 

'"Wait,  wait,  Riboudet,"  cried  the  ecclesiastic  in  a  wrathful 
voice,  "  I  '11  come  and  warm  your  ears  for  you,  naughty  scamp  !  " 

Then  turning  to  Emma  : 

'"  It  is  the  son  of  Boudet  the  carpenter ;  his  parents  are  well 
off,  and  let  him  have  his  own  way,  and  yet  he  would  learn 
quickly,  if  he  chose,  for  he  is  full  of  understanding.  And  I, 
sometimes  by  way  of  a  joke,  I  just  call  him  Riboudet  (after  the 
hill  by  which  you  go  up  to  Maromme  from  Rouen),  and  I  even 
say  :  Mont  Riboudet,  ha  !  ha  !  Mont  Riboudet !  The  other  day 
I  told  His  Grace  this  joke,  and  he  laughed  at  it  ...  he 
deigned  to  laugh  at  it."  ' 

Worthy  fellow  though  he  was,  the  Abbe  Bournisien  was 
not  the  kind  of  ecclesiastic  to  comprehend  poor  Emma's 
troubles,  and  the  interview  ended  in  disappointment.  After 
the  good  clergyman  had  taken  a  rapid  disciplinary  excursion 
into  the  church : 

' "  Come/'  said  he,  when  he  had  returned  to  Emma,  unfold- 


174  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ing  his  lai-ge  bandana  handkerchief,  a  coniei'  of  which  he  put 
between  his  teeth,  "  the  farmers  are  much  to  be  pitied  ! " 

"'There  are  others  too,"  she  rephed. 

'  "  Certainly  !  the  artisans  in  the  towns,  for  instance." 

'  "  It  is  not  they  that  ..." 

'  "  Pardon  me  !  I  have  known  poor  mothers,  virtuous  women, 
veritable  saints,  I  assure  you,  who  were  even  short  of  bread." 

'"But  those,"  resumed  Emma  (and  the  corners  of  her  mouth 
twitched  as  she  spoke),  "  those,  M.  Bournisien,  who  have  bread, 
and  who  have  not  ..." 

'  "  Winter  firing,"  said  the  priest. 

'  "  Oh  !  what  does  that  matter  ?  " 

'  "  What  does  that  matter  }  I  must  say  it  seems  to  me  that 
when  one  is  well  warmed,  well  fed  .  .   .  for  indeed  ..." 

' "  My  God  !  my  God  !  "  she  sighed. 

' "  You  are  in  pain  } "  said  he,  approaching  with  an  anxious 
air  ;  "  it  is  indigestion,  doubtless  ?  You  must  go  home,  Mme. 
Bovary,  and  drink  a  little  tea ;  that  will  strengthen  you,  or  per- 
haps a  glass  of  cold  water  with  some  brown  sugar." 

'  "  Why  ?  " 

'  And  she  had  the  air  of  some  one  waking  from  a  dream. 

'  "  You  were  passing  your  hand  over  your  foi*ehead.  I  thought 
you  felt  a  giddiness."  ' 

And  so  the  conversation  ended.  As  Emma  walked  away, 
she  heard  the  clergyman  and  his  confirmation  class  :  '  Are 
you  a  Christian  ? '  '  Yes,  I  am  a  Christian.'  '  What  is  a 
Christian  ?  '  '  He  is  one  who  being  baptized — baptized — 
baptized — '' 

On  her  return  home  Madame  Bovary  gave  way  to  her 
irritable  nerves  so  far  as  to  knock  over  the  unfortunate 
Bertha,  by  this  time  in  the  toddling  stage,  so  that  the 
child's  face  was  cut  against  the  corner  of  the  table  ;  then 
she  was  seized  with  a  furious  attack  of  maternal  tenderness, 
and  lied  about  the  cause  of  the  accident. 

M.  Leon  left  Yonville  without  declaring  his  passion  to 
Emma,  without    divining    that    it    was    returned  :  lie   went 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  175 

to  Paris  to  finish  his  course  of  legal  study  there.  On  the 
occasion  of  his  departure  the  great  Homais  gave  expression 
to  the  views  of  a  provincial  on  the  subject  of  the  capital. 

' "  Come  !  come,"  said  the  chemist,  smacking  his  tongue, 
"stylish  dinners  at  the  restaurant,  masked  balls,  champagne 
— there  will  be  fine  goings  on,  I  assure  you." 

' "  I  do  not  think  he  will  go  to  the  bad,"  objected  Bovary. 

' "  Nor  I,"  replied  Homais  smartly,  "  although  he  will 
certainly  have  to  follow  the  rest  at  the  risk  of  being  taken  for  a 
Jesuit.  And  you  don't  know  the  life  that  these  rascals  lead  in 
the  Quartier  Latin  with  the  actresses  !  Moreover,  the  students 
are  very  well  received  at  Paris.  If  they  have  some  little  talent 
for  making  themselves  agreeable,  they  are  admitted  to  the  best 
society,  and  there  are  even  great  ladies  in  the  Faubourg  Saint 
Germain  who  fall  in  love  with  them,  which  in  the  end  gives 
them  the  opportunity  of  making  very  advantageous  marriages." 

' "  But,"  said  the  doctor,  "  I  am  afraid  for  him  that  .  .  . 
there  ..." 

'"You  are  right,"  interrupted  the  apothecary,  "there  is  a 
reverse  to  the  medal !  And  one  must  continually  have  one's 
hand  over  one's  breeches-pocket  there.  Thus :  suppose  you 
are  in  a  public  garden,  a  somebody  presents  himself,  well 
dressed,  even  wearing  a  riband,  and  the  sort  of  person  one 
would  take  for  a  diplomatist ;  he  addresses  you ;  you  talk ;  he 
is  insinuating,  offers  you  a  pinch  of  snuff,  or  picks  up  your  hat 
for  you.  Then  a  closer  connection  is  established  ;  he  takes  you 
to  a  cafe,  invites  you  to  his  country  house,  introduces  you  to  all 
kinds  of  acquaintances  between  two  glasses  of  wine ;  and  three 
parts  of  the  time  it  is  only  to  plunder  your  purse  for  you,  or 
lead  you  into  vicious  courses."  ' 

The  departure  of  Leon  left  Madame  Bovary  in  a  very 
miserable  condition  ;  she  tried  to  console  herself  witli  the 
cultivation  of  her  tastes  :  bought  herself  an  elegant  blue 
cashmere  dress,  and  a  bright-coloured  scarf ;  took  to  dress- 
ing her  hair  in  a  variety  of  different  ways,  began  to  learn 
Italian,  began  to  read  philosophy,  began  to  study  history, 


176  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

began  an  infinity  of  things,  all  of  which  she  abandoned. 
Charles  became  anxious  about  her  health  ;  he  invited  his 
mother  to  pay  a  visit ;  the  mother-in-law  and  daughter-in- 
law  quarrelled. 

One  day  a  country  gentleman,  who  lived  just  outside 
Yonville,  brought  one  of  his  farm  men  to  be  bled  by 
Bovary.  Justin  from  the  chemist's  shop,  who  had  been 
asked  to  help,  fainted  at  the  sight  of  blood,  so  did  the 
patient ;  Madame  Bovary  herself  was  forced  to  come  to 
assist  in  the  surgery,  and  was  thus  introduced  to  M.  Rodolph 
Boulanger. 

'  He  was  at  that  time  thirty-four  years  old ;  he  was  of  an 
animal  temperament  and  clear  intelligence,  having  moreover 
had  much  to  do  with  women,  and  understanding  them  well. 
This  one  had  appeared  to  him  good-looking ;  so  he  continued 
to  think  of  her  and  her  husband. 

'  "  I  imagine  he  is  very  stupid.  She  is  doubtless  tired  of  him. 
He  has  dirty  nails,  and  has  not  shaved  for  three  days.  While 
he  trots  after  his  patients,  she  remains  darning  stockings.  And 
she  is  bored,  would  like  to  live  in  town,  dance  the  polka  every 
evening !  Poor  little  woman  !  She  gasps  for  love  like  a  carp 
on  a  kitchen-table  for  water.  Three  words  of  gallantry,  and 
she  would  adore  one,  I  am  sure  of  it ;  it  would  be  tender,  charm- 
ing !  !  !  !    Yes,  but  how  to  get  rid  of  her  afterwards  ?  "  ' 

Eventually  this  small  country  squire  made  up  his  mind  to 
try  the  experiment,  and  the  occasion  on  which  he  avowed 
his  passion  was  that  of  the  great  Agricultural  Show,  which 
was  held  at  Yonville  ;  not  without  some  previous  working 
of  the  oracle  on  the  part  of  Homais,  through  the  medium  of 
the  Rouen  Beacon. 

At  the  Agricultural  Show  Flaubert  brings  together  the 
two  threads  which  run  through  the  whole  book  ;  on  the  one 
side,  we  have  Homais  victorious,  and  the  whole  atmosphere 
in  which  such  persons  live  and  thrive  is   in  full  vibration 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  177 

around  us ;  on  the  other,  Emma's  romantic  aspirations  are 
satisfied :  she  finds  herself  in  possession  of  a  lover,  wealthy, 
well-dressed,  good-looking.  While  the  notables  are  har- 
anguing the  assembled  agriculturists  in  the  approved  style, 
Rodolph  eqvially  in  the  approved  style  is  stimulating  the 
romantic  passions  of  Emma.  Both  Rodolph's  love-making 
and  the  political  rhapsodies  of  the  ofl^cials  are  alike  stale, 
commonplace,  in  every  way  contemptible.  The  whole  thing 
is  summed  up  as  follows  : — 

'M.  Derozerays  got  up,  beginning  another  discourse.  His 
speech  was  perhaps  not  so  flowery  as  that  of  the  Councillor; 
but  it  was  recommended  by  a  more  positive  character  in  its 
style — that  is  to  say,  by  more  special  knowledge  and  more 
elevated  reflections.  Accordingly  the  praise  of  the  Govern- 
ment occupied  less  room  in  it ;  religion  and  agriculture  more. 
The  connection  between  the  one  and  the  other  was  explained, 
and  how  they  had  always  uuited  in  the  cause  of  civilisation. 
Rodolph  was  talking  to  Madame  Bovary  of  dreams,  presenti- 
ments, magnetism.  Going  back  to  the  cradle  of  society,  the 
orator  depicted  to  you  those  savage  times  when  men  lived  on 
nuts  in  the  depths  of  forests.  Then  they  had  abandoned  the 
skins  of  wild  beasts,  put  on  clothes,  ploughed  furrows,  planted 
the  vine.  Was  this  last  an  advantage  .''  Was  not  this  discovery 
after  all  attended  by  serious  drawbacks .''  M.  Derozerays 
propounded  that  problem.  From  magnetism  Rodolph  had 
gradually  come  to  affinities,  and  while  the  President  was  quoting 
Cincinnatus  at  his  plough,  Diocletian  planting  his  cabbages,  and 
the  Emperors  of  China  inaugurating  the  year  with  sowing,  the 
young  man  was  explaining  to  the  young  wife  that  these 
irresistible  attractions  were  due  to  some  anterior  existence. 

'  "  So,  take  our  own  case,"  said  he,  "  why  did  we  come  to  know 
one  another  ?  What  chance  willed  that  ?  It  is  doubtless 
because  our  special  inclinations,  like  two  rivers,  which  flow  to 
meet,  had  driven  us  through  space  to  one  another." 

'And  he  seized  her  hand;  she  did  not  draw  it  back.' 

The  description  of  the  Agricultural  Show  ends  with  the 

M 


178  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

account  which  Hoinais  wrote  of  it,  and  published  in  the 
Rouen  Beacon. 

The  whole  of  this  chapter,  which  alike  in  its  design  and 
its  execution  lifts  Flaubert  above  the  level  of  the  mere  novel- 
writer,  in  which  the  commonplaces  of  passion  are  artfully 
contrasted,  and  associated  with  the  commonplaces  of  middle- 
class  ambition,  the  result  being  a  full,  searching  satire,  un- 
surpassed in  any  literature,  would  have  been  cut  out,  if 
Flaubert  had  followed  the  advice  of  Maxime  Ducamp  and 
his  co-editor  of  the  Revue  de  Paris,  Laurence  Pichat.  It  is 
true  that  this  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  story  of 
Delavuiay ;  as  Flaubert  himself  was  a  very  different  jierson 
from  Balzac,  or  Georges  Sand,  or  Alphonse  Daudet,  or 
Cherbuliez. 

Before  long  Madame  Bovary  had  entirely  abandoned  herself 
to  Rodolph ;  but  in  the  end  mere  adultery  proved  to  her  no 
more  satisfactory  than  marriage  :  she  began  to  vn^ge  Rodolph 
to  run  away  with  her ;  meanwhile  her  romantics  had  begun 
to  frighten  him,  and  he  tlid  rim  away — without  her. 

The  result  was  a  brain-fever,  from  which  she  recovered  to 
encounter  the  pecuniary  difficulties  in  which  she  had  by  this 
time  allowed  Lheureux  to  entangle  her. 

During  the  course  of  her  intrigue  with  Rodolph,  Homais 
had  on  his  side  debauched  poor  Charles,  There  was  an 
ostler  at  the  Golden  Lion,  one  Hippolyte,  who  suffered  from 
the  deformity  of  a  club-foot.  Homais  had  read  somewhere 
in  a  newspaper  of  a  method  of  curing  this ;  he  hunted  u}) 
references,  turned  out  books,  and  though  Hippolyte  was  as 
active  as  a  hare,  persuaded  him  to  allow  Bovary  to  operate. 
The  operation  failed ;  the  leg  became  gangrened  and  had  to 
be  amj)utatcd.  The  ignominy  of  the  failure  rested  with 
Charles,  who  had  further  to  submit  to  the  contem])t  of  his 
wife. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  179 

Emma's  recovery  from  illness  seemed  to  restore  happiness 
to  the  household.  The  Abbe  Bournisien,  who  had  been 
summoned  at  the  crisis  of  her  illness,  used  to  come  to  drink 
cider  in  the  arbom-,  and  even  Binet  proved  sociable.  Lagardy 
being  advertised  to  sing  at  Rouen  shortly,  Homais  advised  a 
visit  to  the  theatre  as  a  means  of  cheering  the  convalescent ; 
Charles  at  once  fell  in  with  his  plan  ;  Emma,  after  showing 
a  little  reluctance,  consented. 

The  opera  was  '  Lucia  di  Lammermoor  "* ;  all  Emma's 
romance  was  at  once  awakened  :  the  personality  of  the  singer 
himself,  reputed  to  travel  with  three  mistresses,  was  exciting. 
M.  Leon  Dupuis,  now  in  an  office  at  Rouen,  having  finished 
his  com-se  at  Paris,  happened  to  be  present  at  the  perform- 
ance; he  saw  and  recognised  the  Bovary  party,  came  to 
speak  to  them.  Charles  was  delighted  to  meet  his  old  friend 
again  :  Emma  was  so  much  restored  by  the  opera  that  he 
suggested  she  should  stay  another  day  and  go  to  the  theatre 
again  ;  M.  Leon  would  escort  her.     This  plan  was  agreed  to. 

The  following  day  Bovary  returned  to  Yonville,  but 
Emma  remained  at  Rouen.  Leon  called  on  her.  He  was 
no  longer  the  timid  youth  ;  he  had  had  experience  at  Paris  ; 
he  re-opened  the  chapter  of  sentiment  at  once.  Emma  held 
him  at  a  distance,  while  looking  back  sentimentally  to  their 
former  friendship) ;  she  agreed,  however,  to  meet  him  the 
next  day  at  eleven  o'clock  at  the  Cathedral. 

As  soon  as  he  was  gone  she  wrote  an  interminable  letter 
withdrawing  from  the  assignation  ;  then  remembered  that 
she  had  no  address  whereto  it  could  be  sent,  and  decided  to 
give  it  him  herself  at  the  Cathedral. 

Leon  rose  early,  put  on  his  best  clothes,  submitted  him- 
self to  the  hairdresser,  bought  some  violets,  arrived  at  the 
Cathedral  before  the  time ;  boldly  entered  the  church. 

'The  Swiss  (verger  in  a  very  glorious  uniform)  was  at  that 


180  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

moment  standing  on  the  threshold  in  the  middle  of  the  north 
door  beneath  the  "  Dancing  Miriam,"  his  plume  on  his  head, 
rapier  at  his  calf,  cane  in  his  hand,  more  majestic  than  a 
cardinal,  and  shining  like  a  monstrance. 

'  He  advanced  towards  Leon,  and  with  that  smile  of  coaxing 
benignity  which  ecclesiastics  adopt  when  they  question  children  : 

* "  The  gentleman  doubtless  is  a  stranger  ?  He  would  like  to 
see  the  curiosities  of  the  church  ?  " 

'  "  No,"  said  the  other. 

'  He  first  made  the  circuit  of  the  aisles.  Then  he  went  to 
look  out  into  the  squai'e.  Emma  was  not  coming.  He  went 
back  to  the  choir.  .  .  .  The  Swiss  at  a  distance  was  inwardly 
indignant  at  this  individual,  who  presumed  to  admire  the  Cathe- 
dral alone.  He  seemed  to  be  conducting  himself  in  a  monstrous 
fashion,  to  be  robbing  him  in  some  sort,  and  almost  to  be  com- 
mitting a  sacrilege. 

'  But  a  rustle  of  silk  on  the  pavement,  the  brim  of  a  hat,  a 
black  mantle.  ...  It  was  she  !  Leon  rose  and  ran  to  meet 
her. 

'  Emma  was  pale  ;  she  walked  fast. 

'  "  Read  !  "  said  she,  giving  him  a  paper.  ..."  Oh  no  !  " 

'  And  she  sharply  withdrew  her  hand  to  go  to  the  Lady  Chapel, 
where,  kneeling  against  a  chair,  she  began  to  pray. 

'  The  young  man  was  irritated  at  this  whim  of  devotion  ;  then 
he  experienced  a  certain  charm  in  seeing  her  thus  lost  in  prayer 
in  the  middle  of  an  assignation,  like  an  Andalusian  Marchioness ; 
then  he  was  annoyed,  for  she  seemed  never  likely  to  stop. 

'Emma  prayed,  or  rather  strove  to  pray,  hoping  that  some 
sudden  resolution  would  descend  to  her  from  heaven  ;  and  to 
attract  the  divine  succour  she  filled  her  eyes  with  the  splen- 
dours of  the  altar,  she  breathed  the  perfume  of  the  white 
flowers  displayed  in  the  great  vases,  and  listened  to  the  silence 
of  the  church,  which  only  increased  the  tumult  of  her  own 
heart. 

'  Then  she  rose,  and  was  departing  when  the  Swiss  came  up 
quickly,  saying : 

'  "  The  lady  is  doubtless  a  stranger .''  She  wishes  to  see  the 
curiosities  of  the  church  .'' " 

'  "  No  ! "  cried  the  clerk. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  181 

' "  Why  not  ?  "  replied  she. 

'For  her  tottering  virtue  clutched  at  the  Virgin,  at  the 
sculptures,  at  the  tombs,  at  every  vantage. 

'Then  in  order  to  proceed  methodically,  the  Swiss  conducted 
them  to  the  entrance  near  the  square,  and  there  showing  them 
with  his  cane  a  great  circle  of  black  stones  in  the  pavement 
without  inscription  or  carving  : 

'  "  There,"  said  he  majestically,  "  is  the  circumference  of  the 
great  bell  of  Amboise.  It  weighed  forty  thousand  pounds.  It 
had  not  its  equal  in  Europe.  The  workmen  who  cast  it  died 
of  delight.  .  .  ." 

'"Let  us  go,"  said  Leon.' 

But  he  was  not  to  have  his  way ;  the  triumphant  Swiss 
drove  them  round  the  tombs  and  altars,  and  was  on  the 
point  of  forcing  them  to  ascend  the  spire,  when  Leon  dragged 
Madame  Bovary  out  of  the  Cathedral  and  hailed  a  cab,  just 
in  time  to  escape  the  panting  Swiss,  who  was  in  hot  pursuit 
with  a  bundle  of  some  twenty  volumes.  They  were  works 
'  which  treated  of  the  Cathedral.'  A  delay  in  the  arrival  of 
the  cab  gave  him  time  to  implore  them  at  least  to  go  out  by 
the  north  door,  and  see  '  The  Resurrection ,"* '  The  Last  Judg- 
ment,' '  The  Paradise,'  '  The  King  David,'  and  '  The  Damned 
in  the  Flames  of  Hell.' 

At  first  Madame  Bovary  objected  to  embarking  in  the 
cab  on  the  ground  of  propriety,  but  upon  being  told  by 
Leon  that  this  was  usual  in  Paris  she  allowed  her  scruples 
to  be  overcome. 

That  vehicle  travelled  through  the  whole  of  Rouen  and 
the  outskirts. 

'  It  was  seen  at  Saint  Pol,  at  Lescure,  at  Mont  Gargon,  at  la 
Rouge-Mare,  and  in  the  square  of  Gaillard-bois ;  in  the  Rue 
Maladrerie,  Rue  Dinanderie,  in  front  of  Saint-Romain,  Saint 
Vivien,  Saint  Maclou,  Saint  Nicaise ;  before  the  Custom  House, 
at  the  Basse  Vieille  Tour,  at  the  Trois  Pipes,  and  the  Memorial 
Cemetery.     From   time  to  time   the  driver  on   his  box  threw 


182  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

despairing  glances  at  the  public-houses.  He  did  not  understand 
the  mania  for  locomotion  which  imposed  on  these  individuals  so 
strong  an  objection  to  a  halt.  He  sometimes  tried  to  stop,  and 
immediately  he  heard  wrathful  exclamations  behind  him.  Then 
he  whipped  up  his  two  jades  to  the  best  of  his  power,  heated 
as  they  were,  and  went  on,  without  taking  any  notice  of  jolts, 
running  over  the  curbstones  here  and  there,  caring  for  nothing, 
demoralised,  and  almost  ciying  with  thii'st,  fatigue,  and  de- 
speration. 

'  On  the  quay  in  the  middle  of  the  trucks  and  barrels,  in  the 
streets,  at  the  corners  of  the  pavements,  the  trades-folk  opened 
great  wondering  eyes  at  this  thing,  so  extraordinary  in  the 
province — a  carriage  with  its  blinds  drawn,  thus  continually 
appearing,  closer  than  a  tomb,  and  swaying  like  a  ship. 

'  Once  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  out  in  the  country,  at  the 
moment  when  the  sun  shone  its  strongest  on  the  old  plated 
lamps,  a  bare  hand  passed  under  the  little  yellow  curtains  and 
threw  away  fragments  of  paper,  which  scattered  in  the  wind, 
and  settled  some  way  off  like  white  butterflies  on  a  field  of  red 
clover  in  flower. 

'Then  about  six  o'clock  the  carriage  stopped  in  a  bye-street 
in  the  Beauvoisine  quarter,  and  a  lady  got  out  of  it,  who  walked 
away  with  her  veil  down  without  turning  her  head.' 

Never  was  the  romance  of  adultery  treated  with  more 
contempt  than  in  this  passage ;  the  Swiss,  the  cabman,  the 
trades-folk  in  the  streets,  all  combine  to  drag  us  down  from 
the  sphere  of  moonlights  and  troubadours  and  elective  affini- 
ties to  the  commonplace  details  of  vulgar  life. 

To  the  editors  of  the  Revue  de  Paris  the  wanderings  of 
this  cab  and  the  sorrows  of  its  driver  appeared  vmsuitable 
for  their  periodical,  and  they  suppressed  the  incident; 
Flaubert  insisted  upon  inserting  a  note  to  the  effect  that  a 
passage  had  been  withdrawn  from  publication  by  the  Review^ 
and  thereby  caused  himself  to  be  suspected  of  having  written 
in  a  very  different  strain.  The  supjn-ession  of  this  passage  is 
a  further  indication  of  the  complete  blindness  of  Ducamp 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  183 

and  Pichat  to  the  real  character  of  the  work  wliich  they 
were  publishing.  The  incident  did  not  belong  to  the  story 
of  Delaunay,  and  was  therefore  incomprehensible  to  Ducamp. 
Madame  Bovary  was  met  on  her  retimi  to  Yonville  by  her 
maid  Felicite,  who  brought  a  message  that  she  was  required 
at  once  at  the  house  of  M.  Homais. 

'  The  village  was  as  silent  as  usual.  At  the  corners  of  the 
streets  there  were  little  crimson  heaps  steaming,  for  it  was 
the  period  of  jam-making,  and  everybody  in  Yonville  made  his 
preserves  on  the  same  day.  But  all  admired  a  much  larger 
heap  in  front  of  the  chemist's  shop,  which  surpassed  all  the 
others  with  the  superiority  that  a  manufactory  ought  to  have 
over  the  kitchen  ranges  of  ordinary  folk,  the  satisfaction  of  a 
public  want  over  that  of  mere  private  needs. 

'  She  went  in.  The  great  arm-chair  was  overturned,  and  even 
the  Rouen  Beacon  was  lying  on  the  ground  trailing  between  two 
pestles.  She  opened  the  passage-door,  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
kitchen,  among  brown  jars  full  of  currants  ready  stripped,  pounded 
sugar,  lump  sugar,  scales  on  the  table,  pans  on  the  fire,  she  saw 
all  the  Homais,  large  and  small,  with  aprons  which  went  up  to 
their  chins,  holding  spoons  in  their  hands.  Justin  was  standing 
there  with  his  head  down,  and  the  chemist  was  shouting : 

'  "Who  told  you  to  go  and  look  for  it  in  the  capharnaum  .^ " 

' "  What  is  it  ?     What  is  the  matter  ?  " 

'"  What  is  the  matter  .^  "  replied  the  apothecary.  "We  are 
making  preserves ;  they  are  boiling ;  but  they  were  going  to 
boil  over,  and  I  ask  for  another  pan.  Then  he,  from  his  slack- 
ness, his  idleness,  goes  and  takes  the  key  of  the  capharnaum 
out  of  my  laboratory,  where  it  hangs  on  a  nail !  " 

'This  was  the  name  that  the  apothecary  gave  to  a  small 
room  in  the  attics  full  of  the  utensils  and  stores  of  his  trade. 
He  often  spent  long  hours  there  alone,  labelling,  transferring, 
tying  up ;  and  he  did  not  regard  it  as  a  simple  store-room,  but 
as  a  veritable  sanctuary,  from  whence  there  afterwards  pro- 
ceeded the  works  of  his  hands, — all  kinds  of  pills,  boluses, 
decoctions,  lotions,  and  potions,  wherewithal  to  spread  his 
celebrity  in  the  neighbourhood.     Nobody  in  the  world  set  foot 


184  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

there,  and  he  respected  it  so  much  that  he  swept  it  out  himself. 
In  a  word,  if  the  shop,  open  to  all  comers,  was  the  place  where 
he  expanded  in  his  pride,  the  capharnaum  was  the  spot  where 
Homais  egotistically  concentrating  himself  gloried  in  the 
practice  of  his  predilections ;  so  the  thoughtlessness  of  Justin 
appeared  to  him  perfectly  monstrous  in  its  irreverence ;  and 
redder  than  his  own  currants,  he  repeated  : 

' "  Yes,  of  the  capharnaum.  The  key,  which  encloses  the 
acids  and  the  caustic  alkalis !  To  have  been  and  fetched  a 
special  pan,  a  covered  pan,  and  which  perhaps  I  shall  never  be 
able  to  use  !  Everything  has  its  importance  in  the  delicate 
operations  of  our  art !  But  in  heaven's  name,  I  say  !  distinctions 
must  be  established ;  we  must  not  employ  for  almost  domestic 
purposes  that  which  is  destined  for  pharmaceutical  uses  !  It  is 
as  if  one  were  to  carve  a  chicken  with  a  scalpel,  as  if  a  magis- 
trate ,  ,  ." 

"'Now  don't  vex  yourself!"  said  Madame  Homais. 
*  And  Athaliah,  pulling  him  by  his  frock-coat,  "  Papa  !  Papa  !  " 
* "  No,  let  me  alone  !  "    went  on  the   apothecary ;  "  let  me 
alone.     Death  and  destruction !     One  might  just  as  well  be  a 
grocer  at  once,  on  my  word  !     There  !  go  !     Respect  nothing  ! 
break  !    shatter !     Let  the  leeches   loose !    burn  the  mallows  ! 
pickle  gurkins  in  the  phials  !  rend  the  bandages  !" 
'"You  had  sent,  I  think — "  said  Emma. 

' "  Immediately  !  Do  you  know  to  what  you  exposed  your- 
self.'' .  .  .  Did  you  see  nothing  in  the  corner  on  the  left— on 
the  third  shelf?  Speak — reply — articulate  something  !  " 
' "  I  do  .  .  .  on't  know,''  stammered  the  young  fellow. 
' "  Ah,  you  don't  know  !  Well,  I  know,  I  do.  You  saw  a 
bottle,  a  blue  glass  bottle,  sealed  with  a  yellow  seal,  which 
contains  a  white  powder,  on  which  I  had  myself  written : 
*  Dangerous '  !  And  do  you  know  what  there  was  inside  it  ? 
Arsenic !  and  you  go  and  touch  that !  Take  a  pan,  which  is 
standing  beside  it !  " 

'  "  Beside  it ! "  screamed  Madame  Homais,  clasping  her  hands. 
"  Arsenic  !     You  might  have  poisoned  us  all !  " 

'  And  the  children  began  to  give  vent  to  shrieks,  as  if  they 
had  already  felt  horrible  pains  in  their  entrails. 

'"Yes,  or  poison  a  patient!"  went  on  the  apothecary.     "I 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  185 

presume  you  wanted  me  to  go  and  sit  on  the  criminal's  bench 
in  the  assize  court !  To  see  me  dragged  to  the  scaffold  !  Do 
you  not  know  the  care  which  I  take  over  my  operations,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  my  experience  is  something  wonderful. 
Yes,  indeed  !  I  am  often  terrified  at  myself,  when  I  reflect 
upon  my  own  responsibility  !  For  the  government  persecutes 
us,  and  the  absurd  legislation  which  controls  us  is  like  a 
veritable  sword  of  Damocles  hanging  over  our  heads  !" 

'  Emma  no  longer  thought  of  asking  what  was  wanted  with 
her,  and  the  druggist  went  on  in  panting  phrases : 

' "  That  is  your  return  for  the  kindness  that  is  bestowed  on 
you  !  That  is  how  you  reward  the  fathei'ly  anxiety  that  I 
lavish  on  you  !  For  where  would  you  be  ?  What  would  you 
do  ?  Without  me  !  Who  supplies  you  with  food,  education, 
clothes,  and  all  the  means  of  one  day  figuring  with  honour  in 
the  ranks  of  society !  But  to  arrive  at  that,  you  must  sweat 
hard  at  the  oar,  and  get  a  tough  skin  to  your  hands,  as  they 
say.     Fahricando  fitfaber,  age  quod  agis." 

'  He  quoted  Latin,  so  furious  was  he.  He  would  have  quoted 
Chinese  and  Esquimaux  if  he  had  known  those  two  tongues ; 
for  he  was  at  one  of  those  crises  in  which  the  whole  soul  clearlv 
discloses  all  that  it  contains,  like  the  ocean  which  in  the  storm 
reveals  from  the  seaweed  of  its  shores  to  the  sand  of  its  abysses. 

'  And  he  went  on  : 

' "  I  begin  to  repent  very  seriously  of  having  burdened  my- 
self with  your  person.  In  other  days  I  should  certainly  have 
done  better  to  leave  you  grovelling  in  the  poverty  and  the  dirt 
in  which  you  were  born.  You  will  never  be  fit  for  anything 
but  a  keeper  of  horned  beasts.  You  have  no  aptitude  for 
science,  you  scarcely  know  how  to  gum  a  label :  and  you  live 
here  in  my  house  like  a  canon,  like  a  cow  in  a  clover-field, 
stuffing  yourself ! " 

'  But  Emma  turning  to  Madame  Homais  :  "  I  was  told  to 
come  .  .  .' 

'  "  Ah  !  mercy  on  us  !  "  intenaipted  the  good  woman  with  a 
melancholy  countenance,  "  how  could  I  tell  you  !  .  .  .  There  is 
a  misfortune." 

'  She  did  not  finish.  The  apothecary  thundered  :  "  Empty 
it !     Scrub  it !     Bring  it  back  !     Be  quick  about  it !  " 


186  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'And  shaking  Justin  by  the  collar  of  his  jacket,  he  caused  a 
book  to  fall  out  of  his  pocket. 

'  The  boy  stooped  to  pick  it  up.  Homais  was  too  quick  for 
him,  and  having  seized  the  volume,  he  gazed  at  it,  his  eyes 
staring,  his  jaws  gaping. 

'  "  Con — ^ju — gal  Love!  "  said  he,  separating  the  two  words  very 
slowly.  "  Ah  !  good,  very  good,  very  pretty  !  And  plates  !  .  .  . 
Ah,  it  is  too  much  !  " 

'  Madame  Homais  stepped  forward. 

'"No,  don't  touch  it!" 

'  The  children  wanted  to  see  the  pictures. 

' "  Go  out !"  said  he  imperiously. 

'  And  they  went  out. 

'  First  he  walked  up  and  down  the  room  with  long  strides, 
keeping  the  volume  open  between  his  fingers,  rolling  his  eyes, 
gasping,  swelling,  apoplectic.  Then  he  came  straight  up  to  his 
apprentice,  and  planting  himself  in  front  of  him  with  his  arms 
crossed  : 

' "  Then  you  have  all  the  vices,  miserable  little  creature ! 
Beware — you  are  on  a  downward  slope !  You  did  not  then 
reflect  that  this  infamous  book  might  fall  into  the  hands  of 
my  children,  put  the  spark  into  their  brains,  stain  the  purity  of 
Athaliah,  corrupt  Napoleon  !  He  is  already  developed  like  a 
man.  Are  you  quite  sure,  at  least,  that  they  have  not  read  it  ? 
Can  you  assure  me  ?  " 

' "  But,  sir,"  said  Emma,  "  sir,  you  had  to  tell  me  .  ,   ." 

'  "  It  is  true,  madam,  your  father-in-law  is  dead  ! " 

'  In  fact,  M.  Bovary,  the  father,  had  died  the  day  before, 
suddenly,  of  an  apoplectic  fit  on  leaving  the  table  :  and  from  an 
excess  of  care  for  Emma's  sensitiveness,  Charles  had  begged  M. 
Homais  to  impart  this  horrible  news  to  her  with  caution. 

'  He  had  thought  over  his  phrase,  he  had  rounded  it,  polished 
it,  balanced  it ;  it  was  a  masterpiece  of  ])rudence,  and  transi- 
tion, of  fine  turns  and  delicacy ;  but  wrath  had  been  too  strong 
for  rhetoric. 

'  Emma,  declining  any  further  details,  left  the  shop ;  for  M. 
Homais  had  resumed  the  course  of  his  vituperation.  He  was 
however  cooling  down,  and  at  present  was  muttering  in  a 
paternal  tone,  while  fanning  himself  with  his  cap: 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  187 

* "  Not  that  I  altogether  disapprove  of  the  work  !  The 
author  was  a  medical  man.  There  are  in  it  certain  scientific 
aspects  which  a  man  is  none  the  worse  for  knowings  and  which, 
I  would  venture  to  say,  a  man  should  know.  But  later — later. 
Wait  at  least  till  you  are  a  man  yourself,  and  your  constitution 
is  formed."  ' 

The  death  of  her  father-in-law  was  not  of  the  nature  of 
an  overwhelming  grief  to  Emma ;  but  it  had  a  considerable 
influence  upon  her  futiu-e  destiny.  Charles  inherited  some 
real  property,  and  M.  Lheureux,  who  had  had  pecuniary 
transactions  with  both  sides  of  the  household,  skilfully  con- 
trived to  suggest  to  Bovary  and  his  wife  that  Emma  should 
have  a  power  of  attorney  to  act  in  her  husband*'s  name,  he 
being  too  much  occupied  to  concern  himself  with  business  of 
that  kind. 

On  the  pretext  of  getting  further  advice  on  this  subject 
Emma  went  to  Rouen,  where  she  spent  three  days  with 
Leon.  Presently,  by  a  little  adroit  manoeuvring,  she  con- 
trived to  spend  every  Thursday  in  his  society,  under  the 
pretence  of  taking  music-lessons.  She  used  to  leave  early  in 
the  morning  before  Charles  was  awake,  and  travel  in  the 
Hirondelle,  returning  by  the  same  conveyance  in  the  even- 
ing. As  the  omnibus  returned  up  the  slope  of  the  Bois 
Guillaume  outside  Rouen  it  used  to  be  followed  by  a  loath- 
some mendicant,  who  would  thrust  his  face  into  the  vehicle, 
a  hideous  countenance,  with  awful  bleeding  eyes  ;  he  would 
sing  a  country  song  full  of  indelicate  allusions,  and  for  a 
few  pence  '  go  through  his  comedy,'  squat  on  the  side 
of  the  road,  throw  back  his  head,  showing  his  horrible 
purulent  orbits,  and  utter  curious  howls  as  he  rapidly 
rubbed  his  stomach  with  both  hands.  Occasionally  when 
he  was  too  importunate,  the  driver  would  lash  him  with 
his  whip. 


188  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Leon  was  at  first  enraptured  with  this  intrigue,  but  in  due 
time  satiety  told  on  him,  and  Emma,  to  maintain  her  hold, 
devised  endless  new  methods  of  exciting  his  passion  ;  even 
provoked  his  jealousy  by  allusions  to  a  previous  lover,  a 
captain  of  a  ship,  with  whom  she  had,  according  to  her  own 
statement,  cultivated  a  platonic  friendship  ;  and  who  was 
entirely  fictitious. 

Lheureux  at  the  same  time  skilfully  used  his  knowledge  of 
Emma"'s  irregularities  in  order  to  involve  her  more  and  more 
deeply  in  debt.  Becoming  every  day  more  impatient  of 
restraint,  she  signed  bills,  and  renewed  them  with  absolute 
recklessness,  so  that  she  might  always  be  able  to  find  presents 
for  Leon,  or  to  add  to  the  luxury  of  their  meetings.  But  the 
day  of  reckoning  came,  Lheureux,  under  the  mask  of  a 
friend,  a  banker  at  Rouen,  into  whose  hands  Emma's  bills 
had  fallen,  pressed  for  payment,  and  drove  her  into  further 
entanglements.  At  last  one  evening,  on  returning  from  the 
town,  where  she  had  spent  the  night  at  a  masked  ball  with 
Leon,  she  found  a  notice  served  of  the  sale  of  her  furniture, 
unless  her  debt  was  paid  within  twenty-four  hours. 

A  desperate  interview  with  Lheureux  served  to  j^rove  that 
she  had  reached  the  end  of  her  tether.  The  following 
morning  she  went  off  to  Rouen  to  ask  for  help  from  Leon  ; 
he  had  no  money  of  his  own  ;  he  went  out  and  tried  to 
borrow  ;  he  returned  : 

'  "  I  have  been  to  three  persons  .  .  .  without  effect !  " 

'  Then  they  remained  seated  opposite  one  another  at  the  two 
corners  of  the  fireplace,  motionless,' speechless.  Emma  shrugged 
her  shoulders,  tapping  with  her  feet.    He  heard  her  muttering : 

'  "  If  I  were  in  your  place  I  would  find  it." 

'  "  Where,  then  >  " 

'  "  At  your  office,"  and  she  looked  at  him. 

'  An  infernal  daring  darted  from  her  burning  eyes,  tlieir  lids 
half-closed  in  a  lascivious,  provoking  fashion,  so  that  the  young 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  189 

man  felt  himself  quail  under  the  dumb  will  of  this  woman  sug- 
gesting a  crime.  Fear  seized  him,  and  to  avoid  explanations  he 
hit  his  forehead,  crying  : 

* "  Moi-el  will  be  back  to-night  !  He  will  not  refuse  me,  I 
hope  " — (he  was  one  of  his  friends,  the  son  of  a  very  rich  man 
of  business) — '^  and  I  will  bring  it  you  to-morrow,"  added  he. 

'  Emma  did  not  appear  to  welcome  this  hope  with  as  much 
joy  as  he  had  imagined.  Did  she  suspect  the  lie  }  He  re- 
sumed, reddening  : 

'  "  However,  if  you  were  not  to  see  me  by  three  o'clock 
do  not  wait  any  longer,  my  pet.  I  must  go ;  excuse  me 
— farewell !  "  ' 

And  thus  vanishes  M.  Leon  Dupuis  from  our  story, 
Madame  Bovary,  driven  desperate,  visited  in  turn  M. 
Guillaumin  the  notary,  Binet,  and,  as  a  last  resort,  Rodolph 
Boulanger ;  then  all  her  romantic  dreams  ended  in  putting 
her  in  the  position  of  a  discarded  mistress,  ineffectually 
dunning  the  lover  who  threw  her  over.  Maddened  by  his 
refusal,  she  rushed  to  the  chemist's  shop ;  she  had  remem- 
bered the  blue  jar  on  the  shelf  in  the  capharnaum.  Fortune 
proved  favourable,  the  Homais  family  were  in  their  private 
apartments  ;  Justin,  who  could  refuse  her  nothing,  was  alone. 
She  demanded  the  sacred  key,  rushed  up  to  the  attic,  seized 
the  bottle,  and  before  the  eyes  of  the  affrighted  youth 
crammed  a  handful  of  the  white  powder  into  her  mouth  ; 
then  she  hurried  home,  calm  in  the  sensation  of  an  accom- 
plished duty.  Before  retiring  to  her  room  to  await  the 
effects  of  the  poison  she  did  not  forget  to  write  a  note  and 
solemnly  deposit  it  in  her  desk.  It  contained  the  words, 
'  Accuse  nobody.' 

From  this  moment  we  feel  that  Flaubert  positively  hates 
the  woman  whom  he  has  created  :  he  spares  her  nothing : 
her  whole  world  crumbles  beneath  her.  The  heroines  of 
romances  take  poison,  and  die  pathetically  in  an  atmosphere 


190  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

of  religion  and  sentiment ;  not  so  Emma.  To  the  last  she 
is  attended  by  the  busybody  Homais ;  the  worthy  but 
prosaic  Abbe  Bournisien  ;  and  when  she  has  received  the 
priesfs  absolution,  and  sinks  back  to  await  death  with 
resignation,  the  song  of  the  beggar  of  the  Bois  Guillaume  is 
heard  coming  down  the  street. 

The  scene  of  the  extreme  unction  was  one  of  those  fastened 
upon  by  the  public  prosecutor  as  an  outrage  to  religion  ;  it 
is  as  follows  : — 

'  The  room,  when  they  came  in,  was  full  of  a  solemn  sadness. 
The  work-table  was  covered  with  a  white  napkin,  and  on  it 
there  were  five  or  six  little  balls  of  cotton-wool  in  a  silver  plate 
beside  a  great  crucifix  between  two  flaming  candlesticks. 

'  Emma,  with  her  chin  on  her  chest,  kept  her  eyes  very  wide 
open,  and  her  poor  hands  trailed  upon  the  coverlet  with  that 
hideous  gentle  movement  of  the  dying,  who  seem  to  be  already 
trying  to  draw  their  winding-sheet  over  them.  Pale  as  a 
statue,  his  eyes  red  as  coals,  Charles  stood  opposite  her  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed,  tearless,  while  the  priest,  kneeling  on  one 
knee,  muttered  under  his  breath. 

'  She  slowly  turned  her  face,  and  seemed  overcome  with  joy 
at  discovering  the  violet  stole,  doubtless  experiencing  in  the 
midst  of  a  strange  peacefulness  the  lost  delights  of  her  first 
mystical  raptures  along  with  the  beginnings  of  a  vision  of 
eternal  happiness. 

'  The  priest  rose  to  take  the  crucifix ;  then  she  stretched  out 
her  neck  like  a  thirsty  man,  and,  pressing  her  lips  on  the  body 
of  the  Man-God,  she  bestowed  on  it  with  all  her  dying  strength 
the  most  fervently  loving  kiss  that  she  had  ever  given.  Then 
he  recited  the  Miserealiir  and  rndulgoitifwi,  dipped  his  right 
thumb  in  the  oil  and  began  the  unctions  ;  first  on  the  eyes, 
which  had  so  eagerly  coveted  all  the  pomps  of  the  world  ;  then 
on  the  nosti'ils,  which  delicately  scented  warm  breezes,  and 
amorous  odours ;  then  on  the  mouth,  which  had  opened  to  tell 
lies,  which  had  groaned  with  pride,  and  shouted  in  debauchery  ; 
then  on  the  hands,  which  had  delighted  in  tender  touching  ; 
and  lastly  on  the  soles  of  the  feet,  once  so  nimble,  when  they 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  191 

ran  to  the  satisfaction  of  their  desires,  and  which  would  never 
walk  again.' 

These  words  are  all  but  a  literal  translation  of  the  Paris 
ritual  for  extreme  unction  ;  and  the  outrage  on  religion  con- 
sisted in  the  artistic  skill  with  which  the  whole  scene  is  led 
up  to  and  developed.  The  incongruity  between  Emma's  life 
and  the  ease  with  which  she  was  accepted  by  the  Church 
in  her  last  moments  is  brought  into  startling  relief.  The 
implied  criticism,  not  upon  the  practices  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  but  upon  the  readiness  of  all  men  to  accept 
a  deathbed  repentance,  and  to  put  the ,  vilest  sinner  on.  a 
level  with  those  who  lead  irreproachable  livesj  wounds  a 
sentiment  which,  though  unavowed,  is,„  very  strong  in  most 
of  us.  What  was  resented  was  not  Flaubert's  irreverence, 
but  his  stern  severity. 

Even  after  the  death  of  Madame  Bovary  her  biographer 
pursues  her  with  unrelenting  animosity.  The  Abbe  Bour- 
nisien  and  Homais  watch  in  the  chamber  of  death ;  they 
quarrel  on  religious  subjects,  become  reconciled,  eat  and 
drink  together.  The  grotesqueness  of  life  still  waits  upon 
the  tragedy. 

And  then  at  last  we  divine  that  the  romantic  part  has 
been  played,  not  by  the  exalted,  imaginative,  sentimental 
wife,  but  by  the  honest,  commonplace,  believing,  loving- 
husband.  He  finds  letters,  first  the  note  from  Rodolph  in 
which  he  announced  his  determination  to  leave  Emma,  as 
he  '  did  not  wish  to  make  the  misfortune  of  her  life ' : 
that  seemed  innocent ;  then  the  letters  of  Leon,  other 
letters  of  Rodolph.  There  could  now  be  no  room  for 
doubt ;  but  Bovary  did  not  cease  to  love  the  woman 
who  had  wronged  him.  One  day,  at  a  restaurant,  he 
met  Rodolph,  who  invited  him  to  drink.  '  I  owe  you  no 
grudge,'  said  Charles.     '  It  was  destiny.'     The  next  day  he 


192  LIFE  OF  GUST  AVE  FLAUBERT 

was  found  dead  with  a  lock  of  her  hair  in  his  hand,  in  the 
arbour  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  where  she  used  to  meet 
her  lover. 

The  reader  will  be  glad  to  learn  that  Homais  succeeded  in 
getting  himself  enrolled  in  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and  that 
no  medical  man  was  ever  able  to  establish  himself  per- 
manently in  Yonville,  so  firm  was  the  faith  of  the  country- 
side in  the  merits  of  the  surreptitious  practice  of  the  great 
apothecary. 

Such  is  a  rapid  summary  of  six  years  of  hard  work.  Page 
after  page  the  story  was  written  and  re-written,  submitted 
to  the  criticism  of  Louis  Bouilhet,  and  then  very  often 
written  over  again.  The  artistic  method  is  perfect.  There 
is  absolutely  no  padding ;  there  are  no  reflections,  no  moral- 
isings,  very  few  descriptions  of  scenery,  only  such  as  are 
absolutely  necessary  to  the  comprehension  of  the  tale ;  the 
book  is  all  nerve  and  muscle.  To  Ducamp  and  others  there 
was  much  that  appeared  supei-fluous,  not  required  by  the 
story  ;  they  did  not  see  that  the  story  is  told  as  an  episode 
in  French  provincial  life  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and  that 
the  description  of  Binet  with  his  turning-lathe  and  fire- 
brigade  is  as  necessary  to  the  picture  as  the  boots  of  Bovary. 
'  A  fact  is  only  important  in  its  relation  to  other  facts  *"  was 
the  maxim  of  Flaubert ;  and  from  that  he  deduced  that  the 
environment  of  the  chief  personages  in  his  romance  was  as 
important  as  the  actions  of  those  personages.  Throughout 
the  book  there  is  further  a  silent  reference  to  a  sentence  to 
be  passed  upon  the  actors  different  from  the  verdict,  which 
they  would  find  for  themselves.  Homais  considered  himself 
a  very  worthy  representative  of  the  most  enlightened  age  of 
the  world's  history ;  we  feel  that  he  is  a  shallow  humbug 
and  a  charlatan.  The  Abbe  Bournisien  was  a  good-hearted 
fellow,  but  he  wished  also  to  be  a  wit  and  a  Christian  apolo- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  193 

gist ;  in  these  capacities  he  is  contemptible.  The  only  per- 
son in  the  book  whom  we  like  is  the  one  who  makes  no 
claims — poor  Bovary,  who  simply  loves  ;  for  love,  even  mis- 
placed love,  is  the  sanctification  of  life.  As  for  the  two 
paramom's,  Boulanger  and  Dupuis,  they  are  both  infinitely 
despicable  ;  the  adulterer  is  likely  to  be  a  worthless  fellow  ; 
and  the  literature  which  applauds  self-indulgence  at  the 
expense  of  another  person"'s  happiness,  with  the  neglect  of 
commonplace  domestic  duties,  is  an  unwholesome,  loathsome, 
lying  literature ;  persons  who  act  in  accordance  with  its 
precepts  are  hateful. 

That  is  the  lesson  we  learn  from  the  book  which  was 
prosecuted  as  an  outrage  on  morality. 

Few  persons  can  read  Madame  Bovary  for  the  first  time 
without  a  strong  sense  of  discomfort,  and  the  pain  caused  by 
the  first  impression  destroys  the  critical  faculty.  For  many 
people  it  is  enough  to  say  that  a  book  is  painful  to  condemn 
it  at  once  as  a  work  of  fiction  ;  the  province  of  fiction  is 
believed  to  be  to  amuse,  to  please,  not  to  hurt.  For  the 
sensation  of  horror  caused  by  a  penny  dreadful  is  not  an 
unpleasant  sensation,  and  to  read  of  the  thrilling  adventures 
of  others  is  not  disagreeable.  But  a  book  which  gives  you  a 
moral  jolt,  which  practically  says,  '  This  and  this  is  the  secret 
desire  of  your  heart,  on  this  you  pride  yourself,"*  such  a  book, 
with  its  eternal  '  These  be  your  gods,  O  Israel ! '  is  an  outrage 
upon  respectability ;  and  respectable  persons  say,  '  Such 
books  should  be  forbidden  by  law.'  It  is,  however,  impos- 
sible to  legislate  upon  the  province  of  particular  forms  of 
literature  ;  all  we  can  profitably  do  is  to  recognise  from 
time  to  time  the  forms  in  which  the  thought  of  the  age  is 
finding  expression.  There  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt  that 
what  the  dramatic  form  was  to  the  age  of  Pericles  and  of 
Elizabeth,  the  prose  romance  is  to  the  nineteenth  century. 


194  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

The  few  men  who  are  capable  of  receiving  the  impression  of 
the  age,  of  understanding,  though  unconsciously,  its  compli- 
cated forces,  and  who  have  further  laid  upon  them  the  curse 
of  the  artist,  and  are  impelled  by  the  necessities  of  their  own 
being  to  expound  to  their  fellow-men  what  they  have  seen 
and  heard  ;  these  men  now  choose  the  prose  romance  as  the 
artistic  form  in  which  their  message  may  best  be  delivered. 
To  say  that  deep  thinkers  have  no  business  to  use  such  a 
trivial  vehicle  is  idle. 

The  literary  artist  is  great  just  in  proportion  as  his  works 
cause  reflection  apart  from  mere  emotion.  The  early  narra- 
tives, such  as  Defoe's  Cavalier^  Smolletfs  Roderick  Random, 
Le  Sage''s  Gil  Bias,  endeavom-  to  amuse  us  by  stringing 
together  a  number  of  stories  around  one  person,  who  is  the 
sole  connecting  link  between  them  all.  They  are  mere  collec- 
tions of  anecdotes,  the  raw  material  of  art.  Between  them 
and  such  works  as  Madame  Bovary  or  Romola  there  is  as 
wide  an  interval  as  between  the  dithyrambic  songs  of  the 
Greek  rustics  and  the  (Edipus  Rex.  We  have  passed  from 
the  stage  of  stories  strung  together,  first  to  the  enlarged 
anecdote  with  its  complex  plot,  such  as  The  Woman  in 
White,  and  have  arrived  at  the  carefully  constructed  prose 
poem,  which  is  philosophy  and  moral  science  in  a  concrete 
form.  The  possible  reactions  of  a  number  of  human  beings 
upon  one  another,  the  necessary  developments  of  certain 
tendencies  in  one  human  being,  are  reasoned  out  and  placed 
before  us  ;  and  the  whole  of  a  romance  is  as  coherent  and 
harmonious  as  a  statue  or  a  painting  :  you  cannot  remove  a 
part  without  disfiguring  the  whole  or  rendering  it  unintel- 
ligible. Thus  the  novel,  from  being  the  resource  of  idle 
moments,  the  dissipation  of  indolent  minds,  a  thing  to  be 
preached  against,  and  put  away  on  Sundays,  has  become  the 
chosen  instrument  of  the  gravest  thinkers  of  our  age,  of  our 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  195 

most  earnest  preachers.  Those  who  object  to  the  works  of 
George  EHot  because  they  are  so  disagreeable,  to  Madame 
Bovary  because  it  is  so  cruel,  and  declare  that  such  things 
ought  not  to  be  written,  are  simply  stoning  the  prophets  in 
order  to  be  rid  of  them  and  their  home-truths. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    MAKING    OF    '  MADAME    BOVARY  "" THE    PROSECUTION 

Louis  Bouilhet  was  at  this  time  residing  in  Paris,  and  from 
the  correspondence  addressed  to  him  we  get  some  idea  of  the 
sort  of  pains  which  Flaubert  considered  that  he  ought  as  a 
conscientious  artist  to  bestow  on  his  work. 

'I  have  just  spent  a  good  week,  alone  like  a  hermit,  and  as 
calm  as  a  god.  I  abandoned  myself  to  a  frenzy  of  literature  ; 
I  got  up  at  midday,  I  went  to  bed  at  four  in  the  morning.  I 
dined  with  Dakno  (his  dog)  ;  I  smoked  fifteen  pipes  in  the  day  ; 
I  have  written  eight  pages. 

'  I  shall  contrive  that  Homais  raves  about  "  cheminots  "  (a 
kind  of  turban-shaped  cake  made  at  Rouen).  This  will  be  one 
of  the  secret  motives  of  his  journey  to  Rouen,  and  further  his 
solitary  human  weakness.  He  shall  give  himself  a  feast  of 
them  in  a  friend's  house  in  the  Rue  St.  Gervais.  Don't  be 
afraid !  They  shall  be  from  the  Rue  Massacre,  and  they  shall 
be  baked  in  a  stove,  whose  door  will  be  opened  with  a  stick.' 

The  '  cheminots ''  duly  appear  in  Madame  Bovary,  and 
Homais  takes  a  bagful  of  them  home  to  his  wife,  but  the 
projected  details  were  mostly  suppressed.  Flaubert's  sense 
of  humour  was,  as  we  have  seen,  apt  to  run  away  with  him, 
and  Louis  Bouilhet  sternly  repressed  its  extravagances.  The 
cap  in  which  Charles  Bovary  first  appeared  at  school  was 
allowed  by  this  severe  critic  to  remain,  but  a  toy,  which 
Flaubert  had  seen  somewhere  and  been  amused  by  as  some- 
thing abnormally  ugly,  was  rudely  withdrawn  from  the  hands 

196 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  197 

of  the  children  of  Homais,  in  which  it  had  been  placed  by 
the  author. 

'  Bovary  goes  on  pianissimo.  Be  sure  and  tell  me  what  kind 
of  monstrosity  to  post  on  the  slope  of  the  Bois-Guillaume. 
Ought  my  man  to  have  an  eruption  on  his  face,  red  eyes,  a 
hump,  a  nose  wanting  ?  Should  he  be  an  idiot,  or  a  bandy  ? 
I  am  very  much  puzzled.  Devil  take  father  Hugo  with  his 
cripples  sitting  in  bowls  like  snails  in  the  rain  !  It  is  most 
annoying. 

'  I  am  going  on  very  slowly.  I  give  myself  an  accursed  lot  of 
trouble.  I  have  just  suppressed  phrases  at  the  end  of  five  or 
six  pages,  which  have  cost  me  the  work  of  entire  days.  It  is 
impossible  for  me  to  see  the  effect  of  any  one  of  them  before  it 
is  finished,  re-finished,  polished.  It  is  an  insane  way  of  working, 
but  what  can  I  do  ?  I  have  a  conviction  that  the  things  best 
in  themselves  are  those  that  I  cut  out.  One  only  succeeds  in 
producing  an  effect  by  the  negation  of  exuberance  ;  and  exuber- 
ance is  precisely  what  charms  me. 

'  Do  you  know  that  my  mother  about  six  weeks  ago  said 
a  splendid  thing  to  me  (a  thing  to  make  the  Muse  hang 
herself  for  jealousy  at  not  having  invented  it).  Here  it  is  : 
'•  The  mania  for  phrases  has  dried  up  your  heart." 

'  Try,  my  good  fellow,  and  send  me  by  next  Sunday,  or  sooner 
if  you  can,  the  following  morsels  of  medical  information.  They 
are  going  up  the  slopes,  Homais  is  looking  at  the  blind  man 
with  the  bleeding  eyes  (you  know  the  mask)  and  he  makes  him 
a  speech ;  he  uses  scientific  words,  thinks  that  he  can  cure  him, 
and  gives  him  his  address.  It  is,  of  course,  necessary  that 
Homais  should  make  a  mistake,  for  the  poor  beast  is  incurable. 
If  you  have  not  enough  in  your  medicine-bag  to  supply  me 
with  the  material  for  five  or  six  sturdy  lines,  draw  from  Follin 
and  send  it  me.  I  hope  that  in  a  month  Mistress  Bovary  will 
have  the  arsenic  in  her  stomach.  Shall  I  bring  her  to  you 
buried  ?     I  doubt  it.' 

'  I.  You  are  an  excellent  beast  to  have  replied  to  me  so 
quickly.  The  idea  of  "  following  a  regular  diet "  is  excellent, 
and  I  accept  it  with  enthusiasm  ;  as  to  an  operation,  that  is 
impossible  because  of  the  club-foot,  and  besides,  as  it  is  Homais 


198  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

himself  who  wishes  to  undertake  the  cure,  all  surgery  must  be 
excluded. 

'II.  I  should  like  some  scientific  words  designating  the 
different  parts  of  the  damaged  eye  (or  eyelids).  The  whole  is 
damaged,  and  is  a  mere  squash,  in  which  nothing  can  be  dis- 
tinguished. None  the  less  Horaais  employs  fine  words  and 
distinguishes  something  to  dazzle  the  gallery. 

'  III.  Lastly,  he  must  speak  of  some  pomade  (of  his  own 
invention .'')  good  for  scrofulous  affections,  and  which  he  in- 
tends to  use  upon  the  mendicant.  I  make  him  invite  the 
beggar  to  come  to  visit  him  at  Yonville  in  order  to  have  my 
rascal  in  at  Emma's  death  !  There  we  are,  old  fellow.  Think 
a  little  over  all  this,  and  send  me  something  for  Sunday. 

'  I  am  working  moderately,  and  without  gusto,  or  rather  with 
disgust.  I  am  really  tired  of  this  work  ;  it  is  a  regular  "  impot " 
to  me  now. 

'  We  shall  probably  have  much  to  correct :  I  have  five  dia- 
logues in  succession,  and  all  say  the  same  thing.' 

'  1st  June  1856. 
'  Yesterday  at  last  I  sent  Ducamp  the  manuscript  of  Madame 
Bovary,  relieved  of  about  thirty  pages,  without  reckoning  several 
lines  cut  out  here  and  there.  I  have  suppressed  three  great 
morsels  of  Homais,  an  entire  landscape,  the  conversations  of  the 
middle-class  folk  at  the  ball,  an  article  by  Homais,  etc.  etc. 
You  may  see,  old  fellow,  that  I  have  been  heroic.  Has  the 
book  gained  by  it .''  It  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  the  whole 
has  now  more  movement.' 

In  spite  of  the  removal  of  so  much,  the  editors  of  the 
Revue  de  Paris  were  not  satisfied  ;  they  found  the  Bovary 
still  too  exuberant,  and  sent  back  the  manuscript  yet  further 
reduced.  Flaubert  kept  tlie  copy  thus  mutilated,  and  it 
was  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death.  To  some 
extent  he  proved  amenable  to  their  criticism,  as  his  reply 
to  Laurence  Pichat,  Ducamp's  co-editor,  indicates  : — 

'  Dear  Friend, — I  have  just  received  the  Bovary,  and  first  of 
all  I  feel  the  necessity  of  thanking  you  for  it  (if  I  am  coarse,  I 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  199 

am  not  ungrateful)  ;  you  have  rendered  me  a  service  in  accept- 
ing the  book,  such  as  it  is,  and  I  will  not  forget  it. 

'  Admit  that  you  thought  me,  and  that  you  still  think  me 
(more  than  ever  perhaps),  violently  ridiculous !  Some  day  I 
shall  be  delighted  to  admit  that  you  were  right ;  I  promise 
you  that  then  I  will  make  you  the  humblest  apologies.  But 
you  must  understand,  dear  friend,  that  before  all  things  I 
wanted  to  try  an  experiment,  provided  the  apprenticeship  were 
not  too  rough, 

'  Do  you  really  believe  that  this  mean  reality,  whose  repro- 
duction disgusts  you,  does  not  make  my  gorge  rise  as  much  as 
yours .''  If  you  knew  me  better,  you  would  know  that  I  hold 
the  everyday  life  in  detestation.  Personally  I  have  always  kept 
myself  as  far  away  from  it  as  I  could.  But  aesthetically  I  wanted 
this  time,  and  only  this  time,  to  exhaust  it  thoroughly.  So  I 
took  the  thing  in  an  heroic  fashion,  I  mean  a  minute  one, 
accepting  everything,  saying  everything,  depicting  everything 
— an  ambitious  statement ! 

'  I  explain  myself  badly,  but  sufficiently  well  for  you  to  under- 
stand the  real  meaning  of  my  opposition  to  your  criticism,  judi- 
cious as  it  was.     You  were  by  way  of  writing  me  a  different  book. 

'  You  were  hitting  at  the  innermost  poetry  from  which  the 
type  upon  which  it  was  conceived  followed  (as  a  philosopher 
would  say).  Lastly,  I  believed  myself  to  be  wanting  in  what  I 
owed  to  myself  and  to  you  if  I  performed  an  act  not  of  convic- 
tion but  of  deference. 

'  Art  claims  for  herself  neither  complaisance  nor  politeness, 
nothing  but  faith — faith  always,  and  liberty.  And  on  that 
point  I  cordially  shake  hands  with  you.  Under  the  barren  tree 
with  the  ever-gi*een  leaves,  entirely  yours.' 

The  spirit  in  which  Flaubert  met  the  action  which  the 
Government  brought  against  the  author  of  Madame  Bovary 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  following  letter  to  Madame  Maiu-ice 
Schlesinger  (an  old  friend  of  the  Trouville  days),  written  on 
January  the  14th,  1857,  when  the  prosecution  was  still  only 
pending : — 

'  How  I  have  been  touched,  dear  lady,  by  your  kind  letter  ! 


200  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

The  questions  you  ask  me  about  the  author  and  the  book  have 
come  straight  to  the  right  address,  don't  doubt  that.  Here  then 
is  the  whole  story.  The  Revue  de  Paris,  in  which  I  pubHshed 
my  novel,  had  already  been  twice  warned,  as  being  a  pei'iodical 
hostile  to  the  Government.  Then  it  was  thought  very  clever 
to  suppress  it  at  one  blow,  as  guilty  of  immorality  and  irreligion  ; 
in  the  end  passages  were  picked  out  at  random  from  my  book, 
both  licentious  and  impious ;  I  had  to  appear  before  a  magis- 
trate, and  the  action  has  begun.  But  I  have  made  a  vigorous 
stir  among  my  friends,  who  have  bustled  about  a  bit  for  me 
among  the  guardian  angels  of  the  capital.  In  short,  I  am 
assured  that  all  is  stopped,  though  I  have  as  yet  no  official 
answer.  I  do  not  doubt  of  my  success ;  the  whole  thing  was 
really  too  stupid.  I  intend,  therefore,  to  publish  my  novel  in  a 
volume.  You  will  receive  it  in  about  six  weeks,  I  think,  and  I 
will  mark  for  your  amusement  the  incriminated  passages.  One 
of  them,  a  description  of  extreme  unction,  is  only  a  page  of 
the  Paris  ritual  put  into  French — but  the  good  folk  who 
watch  over  the  maintenance  of  religion  are  not  strong  in 
catechism. 

'  However  that  may  be,  I  should  have  been  condemned — yes, 
condemned — to  one  year's  imprisonment,  without  counting  a 
fine  of  a  thousand  francs.  Further,  each  fresh  volume  from 
your  friend  would  have  been  cruelly  watched,  and  cleansed  by 
our  respected  police,  and  a  fresh  offence  would  have  taken  me 
again  "  to  the  damp  straw  of  the  dungeons  "  for  five  years :  in 
a  word,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  me  to  print  a  line. 
So,  then,  I  have  learned  (1)  that  it  is  very  disagreeable  to  be 
mixed  up  in  a  political  question ;  (2)  that  social  hypocrisy  is  a 
serious  matter.  But  this  time  it  has  been  so  stupid  that  it  has 
been  ashamed  of  itself,  given  up  its  prey,  and  withdrawn  into 
its  den. 

'As  to  the  book  itself,  which  is  moral,  super-moral,  and  to 
which  the  Monthyon  prize  would  be  given — an  honour  which  I 
do  not  covet — if  its  ways  of  proceeding  were  less  free,  it  has 
obtained  all  the  success  that  a  novel  published  in  a  periodical 
can  obtain.' 

Flaubert  was  mistaken.    The  Government  did  not  abandon 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT     201 

the  prosecution,  and  on  the  23rd  of  January  he  writes  to  his 
old  friend  Jules  Cloquet : — 

'  I  beg  to  inform  you  that  to-morrow,  the  twenty-fourth  of 
January,  I  honour  the  criminals'  bench  with  my  presence,  sixth 
chamber  of  the  Executive  police,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Ladies  are  admitted  ;  costume  must  be  decent  and  in  good  style. 

'  I  do  not  count  on  any  justice  at  all.  I  shall  be  condemned, 
and  have  to  pay  the  highest  possible  fine  perhaps ;  a  pleasant 
reward  for  my  toils ;  noble  encouragement  given  to  literature. 
.  .  .  But  one  thing  consoles  me  for  these  stupidities :  it  is  that 
I  have  found  so  much  sympathy  with  myself  and  my  book.  I 
count  yours  in  the  first  rank,  my  dear  friend.  The  approval  of 
certain  minds  is  more  flattering  than  the  prosecutions  of  the 
police  are  dishonouring.  Now,  I  defy  the  whole  French  magis- 
tracy, with  its  policemen,  and  the  whole  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  including  its  spies,  to  write  a  novel  which  will  please 
you  as  much  as  mine.  These  are  the  proud  thoughts  which  I 
propose  to  cherish  in  my  dungeon.' 

The  result  of  the  action  has  been  already  mentioned. 
Though  the  Government  saw  in  Madame  Bovary  a  danger 
to  morality,  others  were  of  a  different  opinion ;  while  the 
case  was  still  undecided,  Flaubert  received  a  letter  from  a 
lady  unknown  to  him,  strongly  praising  and  thanking  him 
for  his  work.  This  letter  was  the  first  of  a  correspondence 
which  continued  more  or  less  intermittently  for  fifteen  years. 
It  will  be  more  convenient  and  instructive  to  deal  with  it 
separately. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

'  SALAMMBo/ 

The  scandal  attaching  to  Madame  Bovary^  and  its  subse- 
quent success,  caused  its  author  to  become  one  of  the  lions 
of  Paris.  From  this  time  the  circle  of  his  acquaintance  was 
largely  increased,  and  we  meet  with  the  names  of  well-known 
men  and  women  in  his  correspondence.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, give  himself  up  to  the  pleasures  of  popularity ;  no 
sooner  was  the  Bovary  off  his  hands  than  he  began  the 
heavy  course  of  reading  necessary,  according  to  his  ideas,  to 
the  production  of  Salammbo. 

Maxime  Ducamp  is  of  opinion  that  the  work  by  which 
Flaubert  stands  or  falls  is  Salammbo^  that  in  that  he  is  more 
himself  than  in  any  other  of  his  books.  In  other  words,  if 
Salammbo  is  a  great  work,  Flaubert  is  a  great  writer,  and 
vice  versa. 

Salammbo  was  published  at  the  end  of  1862,  and  repre- 
sents six  years'*  work.  The  strength  and  defects  of  this  work 
can  most  easily  be  gathered  from  Flaubert's  reply  to  a  criti- 
cism written  by  M.  Frcehner,  editor  of  the  Revue  Contevi- 
poraine.  To  understand  this,  however,  a  slight  preliminary 
outline  of  the  story  is  necessary. 

Salammbo  is  a  narrative  of  the  war  waged  on  Carthage  by 
her  Mercenaries  after  the  first  Punic  War.  The  struggle 
lasted  a  little  over  two  years,  and  was  brought  to  an  end  by 
Hamilcar  Barca,  the  father  of  the  great  Hannibal,  who 
enticed  the  Mercenaries  into  a  defile  and  exterminated  them. 

202 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  203 

In  the  war  itself  there  were  no  striking  episodes,  and  of  the 
personalities  of  the  chief  actors  very  little  is  known.  The 
moving  spirits  ni  the  attack  upon  Carthage  were  Spendius, 
a  quick-witted  Greek,  who  had  been  a  slave,  and  Matho,  a 
Libyan  soldier.  Inside  Carthage  the  work  of  defence  was 
hampered  at  the  outset  by  jealousies  between  the  party  of 
Barca,  favoured  by  the  populace,  and  the  oligarchy  of 
Carthage.  Flaubert  does  his  best  to  reconstruct  ancient 
Carthage,  materially  and  morally,  to  show  us  the  picture  of 
a  people  entirely  given  up  to  the  acquisition  of  wealth,  un- 
heroic,  devoid  of  chivalry,  but  capable  of  obstinate  and 
ferocious  resistance  to  an  enemy  when  in  extremity.  He 
depicts  them  insensible  to  human  suffering,  hating  and  de- 
spising with  Hebrew  exclusiveness  all  alien  races.  The 
Mercenaries,  on  the  other  hand,  are  elaborately  portrayed 
with  the  reckless  habits  of  soldiers  of  fortune,  pugnacious  and 
careless  of  life  rather  than  cruel ;  brave  but  undisciplined. 

To  connect  the  movement  inside  the  town  and  outside 
Flaubert  invented  Salammbo,  the  daughter  of  Hamilcar,  with 
whom  Matho,  the  leader  of  the  Mercenaries,  is  in  love, 
having  seen  her  on  the  occasion  of  a  feast  given  to  the 
soldiers  in  Hamilcar's  garden.  It  is  the  furious,  insane,  con- 
suming passion  for  Salammbo  which  keeps  Matho  ranging 
around  the  walls  of  Carthage. 

Salammbo  had  been  brought  up  by  Schahabarim,  the 
high  priest  of  Tanit,  the  Phoenician  Venus,  She  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  vulgar  and  impure  forms  of  worship  con- 
nected with  this  deity  ;  her  time  was  spent  in  prayer  and 
fasting,  in  vigils,  in  ceremonial  observances ;  none  of  these 
availed  to  still  the  strange  disquiet  of  her  heart ;  she  yearned 
for  an  initiation  into  further  mysteries,  whose  nature  she 
could  not  divine. 

Within   the  inmost  cell   of  the   labyrinthine  temple   of 


204  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Tanit  was  suspended  the  zaimph,  the  sacred  veil  of  the  god- 
dess. On  the  possession  of  this  veil  hung  the  destinies  of 
Carthage ;  so  long  as  it  remained  draped  over  a  formless 
stone,  the  most  holy  embodiment  of  the  Rabbetna,  the  god- 
dess watched  over  Carthage ;  were  it  once  lost,  she  would 
follow  the  fortunes  of  the  man  or  people  into  whose  posses- 
sion it  passed.  Salammbo  had  never  seen  the  zaimph,  in- 
deed the  sight  of  the  mystic  web  was  believed  to  bring  death 
upon  those  who  beheld  it  with  eyes  unpurified,  but  it  and 
its  potency  largely  filled  her  imagination.  She  often  im- 
plored Schahabarim  to  allow  her  to  make  herself  fit  to 
behold  it  by  the  necessary  prayers  and  ceremonies.  He 
evaded  the  subject,  or  rebuked  her  presumptuous  curiosity. 

Spendius,  who  had  been  a  slave  in  the  palace  of  Hamilcar, 
was  well  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  zaimph,  and  of  the 
superstition  connected  with  it.  As  soon  as  the  Mercenaries 
declared  war  upon  Carthage,  he  formed  the  idea  of  stealing 
it.  From  the  beginning  he  had  attached  himself  to  Matho, 
knew  of  his  love-sickness,  had  divined  in  him  the  right  man 
to  lead  the  Mercenary  forces,  and  aware  of  his  passionate 
longing  to  enter  Carthage  again,  determined  to  make  use  of 
him  in  the  enterprise  of  carrying  off  the  zaimph. 

By  means  of  the  great  aqueduct  Spendius  and  Matho 
entered  Carthage  in  the  night :  they  penetrated  the  inner- 
most recesses  of  the  temple  of  Tanit,  lifted  the  ziiimph  from 
its  hooks.  Matho  wrapped  it  over  his  head  and  shoulders, 
and  then  refused  to  leave  Carthage  till  he  had  seen  Salammbo, 
Guided  by  Spendius,  he  made  his  way  to  the  sleeping-chamber 
of  Hamilcar 's  daughter ;  she  awoke  to  see  a  glorious  man, 
robed  in  the  holy  garment  of  the  goddess,  standing  before 
her.  At  first  dazzled,  she  soon  recovered  herself  sufficiently 
to  curse  the  enemy  of  her  race,  the  spoiler  of  its  divinity, 
and    then   alarmed    her  household.     Spendius   escaped    un- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  205 

noticed.  Matho  walked  out  through  the  waking  town  amid 
the  howls  of  the  inhabitants,  protected  by  the  sanctity  of  the 
stolen  veil. 

Flaubert  then  relates  in  elaborate  detail  the  history  of  the 
Mercenary  war.     His  inveterate  satirical  humour  reveals  itself 
in   his   description    of   the    warlike   preparations   made   by 
Hanno,  the  incompetent  colleague,  but  rival,  of  Hamilcar ; 
while   the   drill   and  military  discipline  of  the  citizens  of 
Carthage   recall   the    Garde   Nationale.      The   Mercenaries, 
owing  to  a  clever  device  of  Spendius,  defeated  Hanno  and 
his  elephants.     Despair  seized  the  rulers  of  Carthage.     At 
this  moment  Hamilcar,  long  absent  on  his  duties  as  sufFete 
of  the  sea,  returned.     The  Mercenary  forces  had  always  been 
closely  associated  with  him ;  he  had  commanded  them  in 
various  wars ;  he  was  suspected  of  wishing  to  make  himself 
absolute  monarch  of  Carthage  by  their  aid.     For  this  reason 
Hanno  and  the  oligarchical  party,  while  the  Mercenaries  were 
still  in  the  city,  had  sent  them  to  feast  in  the  gardens  of 
Hamilcar's  palace ;  they  counted  upon  the  mischief  which 
these  rough  guests  would  work  to  produce  a  breach  between 
them   and    their    general.     Nor    were    they    disappointed. 
Hamilcar  returned  to  find  his  trees  burned,  his  slaves  freed 
or  mutilated,  his  family  elephants  slain  or  hideously  dis- 
figured ;  worse  than  all,  to  hear  a  horrible  insinuation  of 
Matho''s  nocturnal  visit  to  Salammbo.     The  revengeful  man 
— the  same  man  who  afterwards  caused  his  six-year-old  son 
to  swear  to  punish  the  Romans — became  possessed  with  the 
fierce  longing  to  destroy  those  who  had  thus  outraged  his 
home,  wounded  his  family  pride.     He  prosecuted  the  war 
with  vigour,  but  not  at  first  with  striking  success.     Carthage 
felt  the  loss  of  the  zilimph ;  execrated  Salammbo.     Schaha- 
barim  persuaded  her  that  it  was  her  duty  to  recover  the  holy 
veil.    As  soon  as  she  formed  this  resolution  her  family  serpent, 


206     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

which  had  hitherto  been  ailing,  began  to  recover  health. 
Clearly  the  gods  of  her  family  and  country  smiled  on  her 
enterprise. 

The  forces  of  Carthage  and  the  Mercenaries  were  at  this 
time  encamped  close  to  one  another  in  the  mountains  neai* 
Hippo  Zaryta.  Conveyed  by  a  slave  provided  by  Schaha- 
barim,  Salammbo  having  first  ceremonially  enlaced  herself 
in  the  folds  of  the  family  serpent,  made  her  way  to  the  tent 
of  Matho  ;  she  demanded  the  sacred  veil.  In  the  course  of 
the  night  a  fire  broke  out  in  the  camp,  and  in  the  confusion 
that  followed  Salammbo  made  her  way  out  of  the  tent  of 
the  Mercenary  chieftain  with  the  ziiimph,  and  arrived  at  her 
father''s  headquarters,  in  the  sight  of  the  whole  army,  just  as 
the  sun  rose.  That  day  the  Carthaginians  achieved  a  com- 
plete victory  ;  and  Salammbo  was  betrothed  to  a  Numidian 
chieftain  Narrhavas,  whose  desertion  from  the  Mercenaries 
had  occurred  at  this  opportune  moment. 

The  victory  of  Hamilcar  was  not,  however,  complete. 
The  Mercenaries  were  still  strong  enough  to  lay  siege  to 
Carthage — to  cut  the  aqueduct. 

Flaubert  describes  the  sufferings  of  the  besieged  city  in 
detail,  the  climax  being  an  awful  scene,  in  which  the  de- 
spairing citizens  offer  their  children  to  Moloch.  This 
hideous  sacrifice  was  followed  by  rain. 

Soon  after  Hamilcar  appeared  before  the  city  walls,  and 
by  the  semblance  of  flight  contrived  to  draw  away  the  army 
of  the  Mercenaries  several  days'*  march  into  the  defile  of  the 
Hatchet,  where  he  had  prepared  a  trap  for  them.  They 
were  surrounded,  and  most  of  them  slain.  Among  the  few 
prisoners  reserved  from  the  massacre  to  grace  the  triumph  of 
Hamilcar  in  Carthage  was  Matho.  That  the  wrath  of  the 
people  might  be  satisfied,  and  each  have  a  share  in  the 
vengeance,  he  was  condemned  to  run  the  gauntlet  through 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  207 

the  streets,  and  his  bleeding  form,  scarcely  recognisable  as 
human,  threw  the  last  living  glance  of  its  dying  eyes  up  to 
the  tribunal  in  front  of  the  temple  of  Khamon,  where 
Salammbo  was  enthroned  alongside  of  Narrhavas.  A  few 
moments  afterwards  Salammbo  herself  fell  dead  in  the  arms 
of  her  betrothed. 

'  Thus  perished  Hamilcar^s  daughter  for  having  touched 
the  veil  of  Tanit/ 

Flaubert's  own  estimate  of  the  defects  of  his  own  book  is 
as  follows  (he  is  replying  to  a  criticism  of  Sainte-Beuve)  : — 

'  1.  The  pedestal  is  too  large  for  the  statue.  Now,  as  one 
never  sins  by  excess,  but  always  by  defect,  there  should  have 
been  a  hundred  pages  more  given  to  Salammbo  alone. 

'  2.  Some  transitions  are  wanting.  They  existed  ;  I  cut  them 
out,  or  over-shortened  them,  in  the  dread  of  being  wearisome. 

'  3.  In  Chapter  vi.  all  that  refers  to  Gisco  is  of  the  same 
strain  as  the  second  part  of  Chapter  ii.  (Hanno).  It  is  the  same 
situation,  and  there  is  no  advance  in  the  effect. 

'  4.  All  that  reaches  from  the  battle  of  the  Macar  to  the 
sei-pent,  and  all  Chapter  xiii.  to  the  numbering  of  the  Mercen- 
aries, sinks — disappears  in  the  memory.  These  are  passages 
on  the  background,  dry,  transitional,  that  I,  unfortunately, 
could  not  avoid,  and  which  render  the  book  heavy  in  spite  of 
the  efforts  of  agility  that  I  was  able  to  make.  These  are  the 
passages  which  have  cost  me  most,  which  I  love  the  least,  and 
for  which  I  am  the  most  grateful  to  myself. 

'  5.  The  aqueduct.  Confession — My  secret  opinion  is  that 
there  was  no  aqueduct  at  Carthage,  in  spite  of  the  existing  ruins 
of  the  aqueduct.  So  I  have  taken  care  to  anticipate  all  objec- 
tions by  a  hypocritical  phrase  for  the  benefit  of  the  antiquaries. 
I  put  my  feet  in  the  trough  clumsily  by  mentioning  that  it  was 
a  Roman  invention,  new  at  that  time,  and  that  the  present 
aqueduct  was  reconstructed  upon  the  old  one.  The  recollec- 
tion of  Belisarius  cutting  the  Roman  aqueduct  of  Carthage 
haunted  me,  and  then  it  was  such  a  splendid  way[of  introducing 
Spendius  and  Matho  !  Never  mind,  my  aqueduct  is  a  weak 
spot !     Coiifiteor. 


208  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

*  6.  Another,  and  last  bit  of  cheating — Hanno.  Through  love 
of  clearness  I  have  falsified  history  in  the  matter  of  his  death. 
He  certainly  was,  it  is  true,  crucified  by  the  Mercenaries,  but 
in  Sardinia.  The  general  crucified  at  Tunis  opposite  Spendius 
was  called  Hannibal,  But  what  confusion  that  would  have 
caused  to  the  reader  ! 

'  Such  is,  dear  master,  the  worst  there  is  in  my  book,  accord- 
ing to  my  own  opinion.  I  do  not  tell  you  what  good  I  find  in 
it.  But  be  assured  that  I  have  not  made  an  imaginary  Carthage. 
Documentary  statements  about  Carthage  exist,  and  they  are 
not  all  in  Movers.  It  is  necessary  to  go  and  look  for  them  a 
little  farther  off.  Thus  Ammianus  Marcellinus  has  supplied 
me  with  the  exact  shape  of  a  gate ;  the  poem  of  Corippus  (the 
Johamiid)  with  many  details  on  the  African  populations,  etc.  etc' 

Flaubert"'s  admissions  as  to  his  own  failures  are  interesting, 
but  they  do  not  hit  the  point.  Salammbo  is  neither  romance 
nor  history ;  it  is  too  minute  for  the  former,  and  not  diffuse 
enough  for  the  latter.  It  is  none  the  less  such  a  work  as 
only  a  giant  could  achieve,  and  it  is  a  gigantic  failure. 

The  most  convincing  proof  of  the  justice  of  the  above 
verdict  is  afforded  by  Flaubert's  defence  of  his  work  against 
the  criticisms  of  M.  Froehner,  which  at  the  same  time  reveals 
his  strength.  We  can  understand  the  enormous  respect  felt 
by  his  contemporaries  for  a  controversialist  of  such  sound 
and  extensive  erudition,  who  could  hit  out  so  neatly  and 
with  such  force ;  we  further  learn  by  this  striking  illustra- 
tion what  he  meant  by  conscience  in  art,  and  how  inartistic 
might  be  his  methods  : — 

'Sir, — I  have  just  read  your  article  on  Salairimho  which 
appeared  in  the  Revue  Contemporaine  of  the  31st  of  December 
1862.  In  spite  of  the  habit  I  have  formed  of  never  replying  to 
any  criticism,  I  cannot  accept  yours.  It  is  full  of  propriety,  and 
of  things  extremely  flattering  to  me  ;  but  as  it  throws  a  doubt 
upon  the  honesty  of  my  researches,  you  will  allow  me,  if  you 
please,  here  to  take  exception  to  several  of  your  assertions. 

'  I  will  first  ask  you,  sir,  why  you  so  persistently  associate 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  209 

me  with  the  Campana  Collection^  affirming  that  it  has  been  my 
permanent  resource  and  inspiration.  Now,  I  had  finished 
Salarnmbo  in  the  month  of  March,  six  weeks  before  the  open- 
ing of  that  Museum.  There  is  a  mistake  to  begin  with.  We 
shall  find  some  more  serious. 

'  I  make^  sir,  no  pretence  to  archaeology.  I  have  published 
my  book  as  a  romance,  without  preface,  without  notes,  and  I  am 
surprised  that  a  man  like  you,  famous  by  works  of  such  import- 
tance,  should  waste  his  leisure  on  such  light  literature  !  I  do 
however  know  enough  about  it,  sir,  to  venture  to  say,  that  you 
are  completely  wrong  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  your  work, 
the  whole  length  of  your  eighteen  pages,  in  each  paragraph, 
and  in  every  line. 

'  You  find  fault  with  me  "  for  not  having  consulted  Falbe  or 
Dureau  de  la  Malle,  by  whom  I  might  have  profited."  A 
thousand  pardons !  I  have  read  them,  more  often  than  you 
perhaps,  and  on  the  very  ruins  of  Carthage.  That  you  should 
know  "  nothing  satisfactory  about  the  form  of  the  place  or  its 
principal  quarters  "  is  very  possible  ;  but  others,  better  informed, 
do  not  share  your  scepticism.  If  we  do  not  know  where  the 
suburb  Adas  was,  the  place  called  Fuscianus,  the  exact  position 
of  the  principal  gates  of  which  we  have  the  names,  etc.,  we  do 
know  well  enough  the  aspect  of  the  town,  the  architectural 
character  of  its  walls,  the  Taenia,  the  Mole,  and  the  Cothon. 
We  know  that  the  houses  were  plastered  with  bitumen,  and  the 
streets  paved  ;  we  have  an  idea  of  the  Anco  described  in  my 
fifteenth  chapter ;  we  have  heard  tell  of  Malqua,  of  Byrsa,  of 
Megara,  of  the  Mappalia,  and  the  Catacombs,  and  of  the  temple 
of  Eschmoun,  placed  on  the  Acropolis,  and  that  of  Tanit,  a 
little  to  the  right,  when  standing  with  one's  back  to  the  sea. 
All  that  is  to  be  found  (not  to  speak  of  Pliny,  of  Appian,  and 
Procopius)  in  that  same  Dureau  de  la  Malle,  whom  you  accuse 
me  of  not  knowing.  It  is  then  to  be  regretted,  sir,  that  you 
did  not  "  enter  into  tiresome  details  to  show  "  that  I  had  no 
idea  of  the  position  and  arrangement  of  ancient  Carthage, 
"  still  less  than  Dureau  de  la  Malle,"  you  add.  But  what  must 
one  believe .''  to  whom  trust  one's  self,  since  you  have  not  up 
to  the  present  been  so  obliging  as  to  reveal  your  own  system  of 
Carthaginian  topography  ? 


210  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  I  do  not  possess,  it  is  true,  any  text  to  prove  to  you  that 
there  existed  a  street  of  the  Tanners,  of  the  Perfumers,  of  the 
Dyers.  It  is  in  any  case  a  probable  hypothesis,  you  must  admit. 
But  I  did  not  invent  Kinisdo  and  Cynasyn,  words,  say  you, 
whose  structure  is  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  Semitic  languages. 
Not  so  foreign,  however,  since  they  are  all  in  Gesenius — almost 
all  my  Punic  names,  disfigured  according  to  you,  being  taken 
from  Gesenius  {Scrtptura;  linguceque  Phcenicice,  etc.)  or  from 
Falbe,  whom  I  have  consulted,  I  assure  you. 

'  An  Orientalist  of  your  erudition,  sir,  should  have  had  a  little 
more  indulgence  for  the  Numidian  name  Naravasse,  which  I 
write  Nar'Havas,  from  Nar-el-haouah,  "fire  of  breath."  You 
might  have  divined,  that  the  two  m's  of  Salammbo  were  put 
expressly  to  cause  it  to  be  pronounced  Sala???,  and  not  Sala??, 
and  you  might  have  charitably  imagined  that  £gates  instead  of 
^Egates  was  a  printer's  error,  corrected  for  the  matter  of  that  in 
the  second  edition  of  my  book,  anterior  by  a  fortnight  to  your 
admonitions.  It  is  the  same  with  "  Scissites"  for  "  Syssites"  and 
the  word  Kabiri  (which  had  been  printed  without  a  K — horrors  ! 
even  in  the  most  serious  works,  such  as  the  ReligioJis  of  Ancient 
Greece  by  Maury).  As  for  Schalischim,  if  I  have  not  written 
(as  I  ought  to  have  done)  Rosch-eisch-Schalischim,  it  was  to 
shorten  an  already  over-repellent  name,  further,  not  imagining 
that  I  should  be  examined  by  a  philologist  ...  (a  criticism  on 
two  French  words  used  by  Frcehner). 

'  Still  one  thing,  however !  Why  have  you  underlined  the  and 
in  this  phrase,  somewhat  mutilated,  of  ray  156th  page  :  "Buy  me 
Cappadocians  and  Asiatics."  Is  it  to  shine  by  trying  to  make 
the  dunces  believe  that  I  do  not  distinguish  between  Cappa- 
docia  and  Asia  Minor .''  But  I  know  it,  sir,  I  have  seen  it,  I 
have  taken  walks  in  it ! 

'  You  have  read  me  so  carelessly  that  you  nearly  always  quote 
me  wrong.  I  have  nowhere  said  that  the  priests  formed  a 
separate  caste ;  nor,  page  109,  that  the  Libyan  soldiers  were 
possessed  with  the  desire  to  drink  iron,  "  but  that  the  Mercen- 
aries threatened  the  Carthaginians  with  making  them  drink 
iron"  ;  nor,  page  108,  that  the  guards  of  the  legion  "wore  in 
the  middle  of  their  foreheads  a  silver  horn  to  make  them  re- 
semble rhinoceroses,"  but  "their  big  horses  had,"  etc.;  nor,  page 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  211 

29,  that  the  peasants  one  day  amused  themselves  with  crucify- 
ing two  hundred  lions.  The  same  remark  applies  to  those  un- 
fortunate Syssities,  a  term  which  I  have  used  according  to  you, 
"  doubtless  not  knowing  that  this  word  signified  private  cor- 
porations." "  Doubtless  "  is  kind.  But  doubtless  I  knew  what 
these  corporations  were,  and  the  etymology  of  the  word,  since 
I  translated  it  into  French  the  first  time  it  appears  in  my 
book,  page  7  :  Syssities,  companies  (of  merchants)  who  used 
to  eat  together.  You  have  in  the  same  way  misquoted  a 
passage  of  Plautus,  for  it  is  not  demonstrated  in  the  Pcenubis 
that  "  the  Carthaginians  knew  all  languages,"  which  would 
have  been  a  strange  privilege  to  be  enjoyed  by  a  whole  nation  ; 
there  is  simply  in  the  prologue,  i.  112,  "Is  omnes  linguas 
scit,"  which  must  be  translated  :  "  He  knows  all  languages  " — 
the  Carthaginian  in  question,  and  not  all  the  Carthaginians. 

'  It  is  not  true  to  say  that  "  Hanno  was  not  crucified  in  the 
Mercenary  war,  seeing  that  he  commanded  armies  long  after- 
wards," for  you  will  find,  sir,  in  Polybius,  that  the  rebels  seized 
his  person,  and  fastened  him  to  a  cross  (in  Sardinia,  it  is  true, 
but  at  the  same  period).  Book  i.  chap.  xvii.  It  is  not  then  for 
this  personage  to  complain  of  M.  Flaubert,  but  rather  Polybius 
who  would  have  to  complain  of  M.  Froehner. 

'  As  for  the  sacrifices  of  children,  it  is  so  far  from  impossible 
that  they  were  burned  alive  in  the  siege  of  Hamilcar,  that  they 
were  still  burned  in  the  time  of  Julius  Caesar  and  of  Tiberius, 
if  one  may  trust  Cicero  (pro  Balba)  and  Strabo  (Book  in).  How- 
ever, "The  statue  of  Moloch  does  not  resemble  the  infernal 
machine  described  in  Salammbo.  This  figure,  composed  of 
seven  compartments  placed  one  on  the  top  of  the  other,  to  hold 
the  victims,  belongs  to  the  religion  of  Gaul.  M.  Flaubert 
has  no  pretext  in  analogy  to  justify  his  audacious  transference." 

'  No — I  have  no  pretext,  that  is  true  !  But  I  have  a  text,  to 
wit  the  text,  the  very  description,  of  Diodorus  to  which  you 
refer,  and  which  is  no  other  than  mine,  as  you  will  be  able  to 
convince  yourself  by  condescending  to  read,  or  read  again  Book 
IV.  chap.  20  of  Diodorus,  to  which  you  will  add  the  Chaldaic 
paraphrase  of  Paul  Fage,  of  which  you  do  not  speak,  and  which 
is  quoted  by  Selten,  Be  diis  Syriis  pp.  164-170,  with  Eusebius 
Introductio7i  to  the  Gospels,  Book  i. 


212  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  How  does  it  come  to  pass,  too,  that  history  says  nothing  of 
the  miraculous  veil,  since  you  yourself  say  "  that  it  used  to  be 
shown  in  the  temple  of  Venice,  but  much  later,  and  first  at  the 
period  of  the  Roman  Emperors  "  !  Now  I  find  in  Athenaeus  xii. 
58  the  very  detailed  description  of  this  veil,  although  history 
says  nothing  about  it.  It  was  bought  from  Dionysius  the  Elder 
for  a  hundred  and  twenty  talents,  taken  to  Rome  by  Scipio 
Emilianus,  carried  back  to  Carthage  by  Caius  Gracchus,  returned 
to  Rome  under  Heliogabalus,  then  was  sold  to  Carthage.  All 
that  moreover  is  to  be  found  in  Dureau  de  la  Malle,  by  whom  I 
have  profited,  certainly. 

'  Three  lines  lower  down  you  affirm  with  the  same  .  .  .  can- 
dour that  "  most  of  the  other  gods  invoked  in  Salammbo  are 
pure  inventions,"  and  you  add  :  "Who  has  ever  heard  speak  of 
an  Aptouchus  .''"  Who  ?  L'Avez-ac  (Cyrenaica)  in  connection 
with  a  temple  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cyrene  ;  "^of  a  Schaoul .''" 
but  it  is  a  name,  which  I  give  to  a  slave  (see  my  ninety-first 
page)  ;  "  or  of  a  Matismann  .'' "  He  is  mentioned  as  a  god  by 
Corippus.  (See  Johcmneid  and  Mem.  de  I' Academie  des  Inscripi., 
tome  xii.  p.  181.)  "Who  does  not  know  that  Micipsa  was 
not  a  divinity  but  a  man.''"  Now  that  is  just  what  I  say, 
sir,  and  very  clearly,  in  that  same  ninety-first  page,  when 
Salammbo  calls  her  slaves :  "  Here,  Kroum,  Euva,  Micipsa, 
Schaoul." 

'  You  accuse  me  of  taking  Ashtaroth  and  Astarte  for  two 
distinct  divinities.  But  at  the  beginning,  page  48,  when  Sal- 
ammbo invokes  Tanit,  she  invokes  her  by  all  her  names  at  once  : 
'•  Anaitis,  Astarte,  Derceto,  Ashtaroth,  Tiratha.  "  And  I  have 
even  taken  care  to  say  a  little  further  on,  page  52,  that  she 
repeated  "all  these  names  without  their  having  any  distinct 
signification  for  her."  Can  you  be  like  Salammbo !  I  am 
tempted  to  believe  it,  since  you  make  Tanit  the  goddess  of  war, 
and  not  of  love,  of  the  female  element,  moist,  fertile,  in  spite  of 
TertuUian,  and  of  this  very  name  Tiratha,  the  explanation  of 
which,  somewhat  indecent,  but  plain  enough,  you  will  find  in 
Movers,  Phenic,  Book  i.  p.  574. 

'  You  are  also  astounded  at  the  apes  consecrated  to  the  moon, 
and  the  horses  consecrated  to  the  sun.  "  These  details,"  you 
are  sure,   "are  not  found   in   any   ancient  author,  nor  in  any 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  213 

authentic  record,"  Now  as  for  the  apes  I  will  permit  myself, 
sir,  to  remind  you  that  in  Egypt  baboons  were  consecrated  to 
the  moon,  as  they  are  still  to  be  seen  upon  the  walls  of  the 
temples,  and  that  the  Egyptian  cults  had  penetrated  into 
Libya  and  into  the  oases.  As  for  the  horses  I  do  not  say  that 
there  were  any  consecrated  to  ^sculapius,  but  to  Eschmoun, 
assimilated  with  iEsculapius,  lolaiis,  Apollo,  the  Sun.  Now  I 
see  the  horses  consecrated  to  the  Sun  in  Pausanias  (Bk.  i. 
cap.  i.)  and  in  the  Bible  (2  Kings  xxxii.).  But  perhaps  you 
will  deny  that  the  temples  of  Egypt  are  authentic  remains,  and 
the  Bible  and  Pausanias  ancient  authors. 

■^In  connection  with  the  Bible,  sir,  I  will  further  take  the 
great  liberty  of  calling  your  attention  to  the  second  volume  of 
Cahen's  translation,  p.  1S6,  where  you  will  read  this:  "they 
wore  on  their  necks,  hanging  by  a  gold  chain,  a  little  figure  in 
precious  stones,  which  they  used  to  call  Truth.  The  debates 
opened,  when  the  president  placed  the  image  of  Truth  in  front 
of  him."  This  is  a  quotation  from  Diodorus.  Here  is  another 
from  iElian :  "  The  eldest  among  them  was  their  chief  and 
their  judge;  he  used  to  wear  round  his  neck  an  image  in 
sapphire.  This  image  was  called  Truth."  It  is  in  this  way,  sir, 
that  "  that  Truth  is  a  pretty  invention  of  the  author's." 

'  But  everything  astonishes  you  :  the  molobathrum,  which  is 
equally  well  written  (with  all  respect  to  you)  malobathrum  or 
malabathrum,  the  gold  dust,  which  is  collected  to-day,  as 
formerly,  on  the  shore  of  Carthage,  the  ears  of  the  elephants 
painted  blue,  the  men  who  daub  themselves  with  vermilion  and 
eat  vermin  and  apes,  the  Lydians  in  women's  dresses,  the  lynx 
carbuncles,  the  mandrakes,  which  are  in  Hippocrates,  the 
chainlet  on  the  ankles,  which  is  in  the  Song  of  Songs  (Cahen, 
t.  xvi.  37),  and  the  irrigation  with  silphium,  the  beards  in 
bags,  the  crucified  lions,  etc.  .  .  .  everything ! 

'  Well — sir.  No.  I  did  not  "  borrow  all  these  details  from  the 
negroes  of  Senegambia."  I  refer  you  for  the  elephants  to 
Armandi's  work,  p.  256",  and  to  the  authorities  that  he  indicates, 
such  as  Florus,  Diodorus,  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  and  other 
negroes  from  Senegambia. 

'  As  for  the  nomads  who  eat  apes,  chew  lice,  and  daub  them- 
selves  with   vermilion,  as  you   might  be  asked   "from   what 


214  LIFE  OF  GUST  AVE  FLAUBERT 

source  the  author  has  derived  this  precious  information,"  and 
as  "you  would  be,"  according  to  your  own  admission,  "very 
much  embarrassed  to  say,"  I  will  give  you,  with  all  humility, 
some  indications,  which  may  facilitate  your  researches, 

' "  The  Mascii  .  .  .  paint  their  bodies  with  vermilion.  The 
Gysarites  paint  themselves  all  over  with  vermilion,  and  eat 
apes.  Their  wives  (those  of  the  Adrymachydes),  if  they  are 
bitten  by  a  louse,  take  it,  and  bite  it,  etc."  You  will  see  all 
that  in  the  fourth  book  of  Herodotus,  in  chapters  194,  191,  and 
l68.     I  have  no  difficulty  in  telling  you. 

'  The  same  Herodotus  informed  me,  in  the  description  of  the 
army  of  Xerxes,  that  the  Lydians  had  women's  dresses  ;  further, 
Athenaeus,  in  his  chapter  on  the  Etruscans,  and  their  resem- 
blance to  the  Lydians,  says  that  they  wore  the  dresses  of 
women ;  lastly,  the  Lydian  Bacchus  is  always  represented  in  a 
female  costume.  Is  this  sufficient  about  the  Lydians  and  their 
garments  ? 

The  beards  covered  in  bags  in  sign  of  mourning  are  in  Cahen 
(Ezekiel  xxiv.  17)  and  on  the  chins  of  Egyptian  colossi,  those 
of  Aboo-Simbal  among  othei's ;  the  carbuncles  formed  by  the 
urine  of  the  lynx,  in  Theophrastus,  book  on  Gems,  and  in  Pliny 
Bk.  VIII.  chap.  Iviiii.  And  as  for  what  concerns  the  crucified 
lions  (whose  number  you  bring  up  to  two  hundred,  in  order, 
doubtless,  to  make  me  a  present  of  an  absurdity,  which  is  not 
mine),  I  beg  you  to  read  in  the  same  book  of  Pliny  the 
eighteenth  chapter,  where  you  will  learn  that  Scipio  J^milianus 
and  Polybius,  walking  together  in  the  country  near  Carthage, 
saw  some  of  them  tortured  in  this  fashion  :  "  Quia  caeteri  metu 
pcEnae  similis  absterrentur  eadem  noxia."  Are  these,  sir,  the 
passages  taken  indiscriminately  from  the  Univers  piltorcsque, 
and  "which  the  higher  criticism  has  successfully  used  against 
me  "  ?     Of  what  high  criticism  do  you  speak  ?     Of  your  own  ? 

'You  divert  yourself  prodigiously  with  the  pomegranates 
watered  with  silphium.  But  this  detail,  sir,  is  not  mine.  It  is 
in  Pliny,  Bk.  xxii.  chap,  xlvii.  I  am  much  concerned  for 
your  joke  about  "  the  hellebore  which  ought  to  be  cultivated 
at  Charenton  "  ;  but  as  you  say  yourself,  "  The  most  penetrating 
mind  cannot  supply  the  want  of  sound  knowledge." 

'You  have  gone  completely  wrong  in  affii-ming  that  "among 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  215 

the  precious  stones  of  Hamilcar's  treasure  more  than  one  be- 
longs to  the  Christian  legends  and  superstitions."  No !  sir. 
They  are  all  from  Pliny  and  Theophrastus. 

'  The  emerald  pillars  at  the  entrance  of  the  temple,  which 
make  you  laugh,  for  you  are  gay,  are  mentioned  by  Philostratus 
(Aj)ollojiii  Vita)  and  by  Theophrastus  (Treatise  on  Gems). 
Heeren  (v.  11)  quotes  his  phrase:  "The  greatest  Bactrian 
emerald  is  at  Tyre  in  the  temple  of  Hercules.  It  is  a  column 
of  some  size."  Another  passage  of  Theophrastus  (Hill's  trans- 
lation) :  "  There  was  in  the  temple  of  Jupiter  an  obelisk 
composed  of  four  emeralds." 

'In  spite  of  your  "sound  information,''  you  confuse  jade, 
which  is  a  nephrite  of  a  green  brown  colour,  and  which  comes 
from  China,  with  jasper,  a  variety  of  quartz  which  is  found  in 
Europe  and  Sicily. 

'  If  you  had  chanced  to  have  opened  the  Dictionary  of  the 
French  Academy  at  the  word  jasper,  you  would  have  learned, 
without  going  any  further,  that  there  were  black,  red,  and 
white  varieties.  You  should  then,  sir,  have  controlled  the 
transports  of  your  indomitable  spirit,  and  not  have  lightly 
reproached  my  master  and  friend  Theophile  Gauthier,  with 
having  lent  a  woman  (in  his  Romance  of  a  Mummy)  green  feet, 
when  he  gave  her  white  feet.  So  it  is  not  he,  but  you,  that 
have  made  "a  ridiculous  error."  If  you  had  a  little  less  con- 
tempt for  travelling,  you  might  have  seen  in  the  Museum  of 
Turin  the  very  arm  of  this  mummy,  brought  back  from  Egypt 
by  M.  Passalacqua,  and  in  the  position,  which  Theophile 
Gauthier  describes,  that  position,  which,  according  to  you,  is 
certainly  not  Egyptian.  Without  being  an  engineer  either,  you 
might  have  learned  what  the  sakieh  are  to  supply  the  houses 
with  water,  and  you  would  have  been  convinced  that  I  have  not 
made  an  unjustifiable  use  of  black  garments  in  putting  them  in 
countries,  where  they  swarm,  and  where  the  women  of  the 
upper  classes  never  go  out  except  in  black  veils.  But  as  you 
prefer  written  evidence,  I  recommend  to  your  notice,  for  all  that 
concerns  the  clothing  of  the  women,  Isaiah  iii.  3,  the  Mischna 
under  Sabbatho,  Samuel  xiii.  1 8,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  part 
ii.  13,  and  the  dissertations  of  Abbe  Mignot  in  the  Memoires 
de   I' Academie   des   Inscriptions,  xlvi.     And   as    for   that    super- 


216  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

abundance  of  ornamentation,  which  astounds  you  so  much,  I 
had  every  right  to  lavish  it  upon  peoples  who  encrusted 
precious  stones  in  the  floors  of  their  rooms  (Cahen,  Ezekiel  xxviii. 
1 4).     But  you  are  not  happy  in  the  matter  of  precious  stones. 

'  I  conclude,  sir,  with  thanking  you  for  the  well-bred  forms 
which  you  have  employed,  a  rare  thing  nowadays.  Among 
your  inaccuracies  I  have  only  noticed  the  grossest,  those  which 
touched  on  special  points.  As  for  the  vague  criticisms,  the 
personal  applications,  and  the  literary  review  of  my  book,  I 
have  not  even  alluded  to  them.  I  have  restricted  myself  the 
whole  time  to  your  own  field,  that  of  science ;  and  I  repeat  to 
you  once  again,  that  I  am  but  moderately  sound  in  that.  I 
neither  know  Hebrew,  nor  Arabic,  nor  German,  nor  Greek,  nor 
Latin,  and  I  do  not  pride  myself  on  my  knowledge  of  French. 
I  have  often  used  translations,  but  sometimes  also  the  originals. 
I  have  consulted  in  my  times  of  doubt  the  men  who  pass  for 
being  the  most  competent  in  France,  and  if  I  "  have  not  been 
better  guided,"  the  reason  is  that  I  had  not  the  honour,  the 
advantage  of  knowing  you.  Excuse  me  !  if  I  had  taken  advice 
from  you  should  I  have  "succeeded  better".''  I  doubt  it.  In 
any  case,  I  should  have  lost  some  signs  of  goodwill  which  you 
bestow  on  me  here  and  there  in  your  article,  and  I  should  have 
spared  you  the  kind  of  remorse  with  which  it  concludes.  But 
comfort  yourself,  sir  !  although  you  seem  terrified  at  your  own 
force,  and  you  think  seriously  "  you  have  cut  up  my  book  bit  by 
bit,"  do  not  be  afraid,  calm  yourself !  For  you  have  not  been 
cruel,  but  .  .  .  trivial. — I  have  the  honour  to  be,  etc., 

'  GusTAVE  Flaubert.' 

A  romance  that  needs  to  be  defended  in  this  style  is  at 
once  condemned  as  a  romance.  It  may  be  a  very  learned 
work,  and  a  conscientious  work,  but  it  cannot  be  one  of  those 
works  of  deep  human  interest  which  arrest  the  attention 
even  of  the  unlearned.  As  the  ♦S'^.  Anthony  is  spoiled  by 
the  processions  of  strange  monsters,  and  little  known  divini- 
ties, so  Salammho  fails  to  be  effective  by  the  very  prodigality 
of  the  accurate  details  which  are  lavished  upon  the  picture ; 
and  these  details  are  mostly  concerned   with   the  material 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  217 

surroundings  of  the  characters.  Some  of  the  descriptions 
are  not  overloaded  for  the  effect  intended,  such,  for  instance, 
as  the  description  of  Hamilcar"'s  palace  and  treasures,  of  the 
temples  of  Tanit  and  Moloch,  of  the  defeat  of  Hanno  ;  but 
we  soon  weary  of  such  Avriting  as  this : — 

'The  Carthaginians  were  still  in  the  first  panic  of  their  arrival, 
when  they  perceived,  coming  straight  towards  them  like  mon- 
sters, and  like  buildings,  with  their  masts,  their  arms,  their 
coi-ds,  their  articulations,  their  capitals,  and  their  carapaces,  the 
siege  machines,  which  were  sent  by  the  Tyrian  towns,  sixty 
carrobalistse,  eighty  onagri,  thirty  scorpions,  fifty  tolenones, 
twelve  battering-i-ams,  and  three  gigantic  catapults,  which 
hurled  pieces  of  rock  weighing  fifteen  talents.  Masses  of  men 
pushed  them  on,  hooked  on  to  their  bases ;  at  each  step  a 
shudder  shook  them ;  thus  they  came  up  to  the  front  of  the 
walls.' 

From  the  antiquarian  point  of  view  this  is  all  interesting 
enough ;  but  it  does  not  add  to  our  conception  of  Salammbo 
or  Carthage.  In  such  a  work  even  as  Bekker's  CharicleSy 
which  professes  to  illustrate  archaeology,  these  minute  descrip- 
tions of  material  appliances  are  relegated  to  the  notes.  There 
is  nothing  lyrical  in  long  categories  of  jewels,  coins,  plants, 
arms,  perfumes  ;  nothing  artistic  in  the  multiplication  of 
the  many-syllabled  names  of  tribes,  of  whom  little  is  known 
except  that  their  nasty  habits  are  recorded  by  Herodotus. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that  we  are  given 
a  very  clear  picture  of  one  point  in  which  antiquity  differs 
from  the  nineteenth  century,  viz.,  in  the  indifference  to 
physical  suffering,  to  butchery,  to  general  noisomeness. 
Flaubert  is  merciless  in  this  particular ;  pools  of  blood, 
gobbets  of  flesh,  the  circumambient  entrails  of  wounded 
elephants,  Hanno's  leprosy,  and  still  more  loathsome  pallia- 
tives of  that  leprosy,  pestiferous  stinks,  putrefaction,  assail 
us  on  every  opportunity.     This  multiplication   of  horrors 


218  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

amounts  to  nothing  in  the  end,  and  eventually  affects  the 
reader  no  more  than  the  gory  pictures  painted  outside  a 
show  at  a  fair ;  yet  for  all  this  Flaubert  was  provided  with 
chapter  and  verse.  The  only  fine  conception  in  the  book, 
which  is  adequately  and  not  redundantly  treated,  is  the  love- 
sickness  of  Matho  ;  and  that  is  an  invention. 

Strange  irony !  Flaubert  thought  when  he  wrote  this 
book  that  he  was  giving  the  rein  to  his  imagination,  his 
friends  thought  he  was  developing  his  lyrical  tendency  ;  in 
fact,  he  was  enjoying  an  orgy  of  antiquarian  erudition. 

The  historian  may  read  Salammbo  with  profit,  the  student 
with  interest,  but  the  book  remains  a  monumental  scare- 
crow ;  a  warning  as  to  how  a  historical  romance  should  not 
be  written. 

In  connection  with  the  repulsive  descriptions  in  Salammbo 
there  arises  the  question  as  to  whether  wounds  and  gore  and 
evil  smells  affected  Flaubert  as  they  aff*ect  the  generality  of 
men.  Most  probably  not.  We  have  seen  that  when  quite 
a  child  he  was  in  the  habit  of  watching  his  father  at  work  in 
the  dissecting-room  through  a  window.  A  surgeon''s  house- 
hold is  the  last  place  in  which  squeamishness  is  encouraged. 
Flaubert  describes  during  his  Breton  tour  the  aspect  of  a 
slaughter-house,  enthusiastically ;  at  Jerusalem  he  was  fasci- 
nated by  the  place  of  slaughtering  in  the  street.  In  measur- 
ing his  artistic  blunder,  we  must  judge  him  from  his  own 
point  of  view  ;  these  things  were  not  horrible  or  repellent  to 
him  ;  and  he  did  not  believe  that  they  could  genuinely  be  so 
to  others. 

More  than  this,  Flaubert  was  a  fanatical  worshipper  of 
truth  ;  he  could  not  gloss  over,  conceal.  He  was  of  opinion 
that  mankind,  as  a  rule,  deceive  themselves  deliberately  ; 
avert  their  eyes  from  what  is  disagreeable,  inconsistent  with 
their  prejudices.     We  have  seen  the  scrupulous  minuteness 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  219 

with  which  he  sought  authority  for  every  statement  which  he 
makes.  The  result  is,  however,  not  a  work  of  art,  but  a 
scientific  document,  whose  scientific  value  is  to  most  readers 
non-existent,  because  it  appears  in  the  form  of  a  work  of 
fiction. 

Here  again,  by  a  strange  irony,  Flaubert  is  a  flagrant 
sinner  against  his  own  rules  ;  for  what  has  truth  to  do  with 
those  works  of  art  which  have  no  subject  ?  whose  words  are 
a  succession  of  melodious  sounds  affecting  mankind  by  their 
beauty,  and  their  beauty  only  ? 

In  holding  a  brief  for  truth,  as  he  understood  it,  and  in 
destroying  the  beauty  of  his  works  by  descriptions  of  things 
which  to  ordinary  men  and  women  are  nauseous  even  more 
than  ugly,  he  was  as  much  guilty  of  writing  romances  with  a 
purpose  as  Xavier  de  Maistre  or  Walter  Besant. 

Guy  de  Maupassant  has  asked  whether  Carthage  really 
was  as  Flaubert  described  it,  and  decided  in  the  negative — 
why  ?  Probably  because  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  human 
beings  existing  under  the  conditions  that  Flaubert  describes  ; 
but  were  they  so  very  much  worse  than  the  condition  of  the 
Netherlands  under  Alva  ? 


CHAPTER   XV 


I.'  ' 


THE  '  EDUCATION  SENTIMENTALE  LETTERS  TO  TWO  LADIES 

RELIGION 

It  is  often  pleasant  to  turn  from  Flaubert  the  author  to 
Flaubert  the  man.  After  the  publication  of  Salammbo  his 
society  was  even  more  sought  after  than  when  Madame  Bovary 
had  startled  Paris.  He  used  to  spend  a  few  months  in  the 
winter  in  the  capital,  charming  by  his  expansive  good-nature, 
his  apparently  inexhaustible  animal  spirits,  astounding  by  his 
erudition ;  everywhere  preaching  the  gospel  of  art  for  art's 
sake.  He  became  a  friend  of  the  Priiicesse  Mathilde,  and 
was  even  invited  to  Fontainebleau,  where,  some  one  having 
spoken  contemptuously  of  Victor  Hugo,  he  was  with  diffi- 
culty prevented  from  reciting  Les  Chdtiments  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Empress.  He  became  a  friend  of  the  brothers 
De  Goncourt,  of  Daudet,  of  Zola,  of  Turgenieff.  He  fre- 
quented the  theatres,  studied  actors  and  actresses  behind 
the  scenes,  in  whom  he  discovered  something  peculiarly  and 
irresistibly  comic.  Needless  to  say  that  work  went  on  as 
usual.  After  finishing  Salammbo  he  again  picked  up  St. 
Anthony,  and  again  put  it  reluctantly  aside.  Then  he 
worked  for  a  while  at  a  fairy  piece  of  a  perfectly  novel 
construction,  in  which  all  metaphors  were  suddenly  to  be 
embodied  in  visible  shape  on  the  stage.  How  this  was  to  be 
managed  is  not  quite  apparent ;  and  as  the  same  difficulty 
suggested  itself  to  theatrical  managers  the  fairy  piece  was 
never  performed  or  published. 

220 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  221 

At  last  Flaubert  fell  back  upon  another  youthful  effort, 
which,  like  the  St.  Antoine,  had  been  consigned  to  his  port- 
folios.    It  was  called  the  Education  Sentiment  ale,  and  the 
original  story  was  suggested  by  his  own  platonic  adoration 
of  a  married  woman  whom  he  had  met  first  at  Trouville 
when  he  was  only  a  lad  of  fourteen.     From  this  experience 
he  deduced  a  theory  of  disillusionment  in  the  matter  of  love, 
of  a  degradation  of  the  ideal ;  but  men  do  not  only  live 
through   their  conceptions  of  love,  they  also  live  through 
their  ideal  conceptions  of  every  kind ;  their  political  faiths, 
their  ambitions,  give  way  to  wider  knowledge  of  life  and  of 
themselves ;  they  are  often  deceived  at  the  outset  in  their 
very  conception  of  themselves,  mistake  a  love  of  notoriety 
for  patriotism,  taste  for  idle  gossip  for  political  activity ; 
congratulate  themselves  on  their  originality  when  they  emit 
or  swallow  ready-made  phrases.     To  illustrate  these  views 
Flaubert  wrote   a  book,   which    has   little   of  the   original 
Education  Sentimentale  except  the  name ;  he  worked  at  it 
for  six  years   with   the   same   minute   conscientiousness    in 
matters  of  detail  that   he  had  expended  upon  Salammho. 
The  period  selected  for  the  story  is  that  immediately  pre- 
ceding and  following  the  Revolution  of  "'48  ;  and  the  possible 
environment   of  the   personages   at    that    epoch  was    most 
carefully  worked  out.     If  his  characters  have  to  go  to  Fon- 
tainebleau,  Flaubert  must  ascertain  exactly  how  they  would 
be  able  to  travel,  whether  the  railway  was  open  as  far  as 
Corbeil,  and  so  forth.     Details  of  the  fighting  in  the  streets 
in  '48  were  gathered  from  eye-witnesses  ;  the  conversations 
of  the  period  are  reproduced  in  the  style  of  the  literature 
current  at  the  time  ;  even  the  newspapers,  so  antipathetic  to 
Flaubert's  own  tastes,  were  carefully  exploited. 

Among  his  correspondents  at  this  time  are  two  ladies, 
one  of  whom.  Mademoiselle  Leroyer  de  Chantepie,  he  never 


222  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

saw  ;  she  is  the  lady  who  wrote  to  him  on  the  pubhcation 
of  Madame  Bovary  ;  the  other,  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes, 
who  died  in  January  1891,  was  the  granddaughter  of  the 
Girondin  Valaze  ;  her  husband  and  cousin,  Charles  Roger 
des  Genettes,  was  descended  from  one  of  the  eminent  mili- 
tary medical  men  of  the  first  Empire  ;  she  herself  lived  in 
contact  with  the  most  brilliant  figures  in  Parisian  literary 
society.  In  this  correspondence  Flaubert  reveals  qualities 
which  were  not  suspected  by  the  male  friends  of  the  noisy 
giant,  who  used  to  howl  verses  in  the  heat  of  controversy, 
and  bang  the  table  till  the  glasses  jingled.  While  the 
ethical  views  expressed  in  these  letters  are  in  accordance 
with  the  known  facts  of  his  life,  on  the  other  hand,  much  of 
their  philosophy  is  also  to  be  found  in  the  Saint  Antoine ; 
thus  these  letters  are  to  some  extent  a  bridge  connectina;  his 
private  with  his  artistic  life. 

TO  MLLE  LEKOYER  DE  CHANTEPIE. 

'Paris,  March  18,  '57. 

' ,  .  .  With  such  and  so  sympathetic  a  reader  as  you,  madam, 
frankness  is  a  duty  ;  so  I  am  going  to  answer  your  questions. 
There  is  no  real  fact  in  Madame  Bovarij ;  the  story  is  entirely 
invented  ;  I  have  not  put  into  it  either  my  own  sentiments  or 
any  of  my  own  existence.  On  the  contrary,  the  illusion  (if 
there  is  any)  comes  from  the  impersonality  of  the  work.  It  is 
one  of  my  principles  that  the  author  should  not  describe  him- 
self. The  artist  should  be  in  his  work,  like  God  in  creation, 
invisible  and  all-powerful ;  he  should  be  felt  everywhere,  and 
seen  nowhere.  And  then  art  should  be  raised  above  personal 
affections  and  nervous  susceptibilities.  It  is  time  to  give  it  the 
precision  of  the  physical  sciences  by  means  of  pitiless  method. 
For  me  the  capital  difficulty  none  the  less  continues  to  be 
style,  form,  the  indefinable  beauty,  which  is  the  result  of  the 
conception  itself,  and  which  is  the  splendour  of  truth,  as  Plato 
used  to  say.' 

'Croisset,  Mai/  18,  '57. 

' .  .  .   You  ask  me  how  I  cured  myself  of  the  nervous  halluci- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  223 

nations  from  which  I  formerly  suffered  ?  In  two  ways  :  (1)  by 
studying  them  scientifically,  that  is  to  say,  by  trying  to  under- 
stand them ;  and  (2)  by  force  of  will.  I  have  often  felt 
insanity  coming  upon  me.  There  was  a  whirl  of  ideas  and 
images  in  my  poor  brain,  in  which  my  consciousness,  my  me, 
seemed  to  founder  like  a  ship  beneath  a  storm.  But  I  clung 
desperately  to  my  reason.  It  prevailed  over  everything,  though 
besieged  and  beaten  upon.  At  other  times  I  used  to  try  by 
means  of  imagination  to  give  myself  these  horrible  sufferings 
factitiously.  I  have  played  with  madness  and  fantasy  like 
Mithridates  with  the  poisons.  I  was  sustained  by  a  mighty 
pride,  and  I  conquered  the  mischief  by  wrestling  with  it,  body 
to  body. 

'  There  is  a  sentiment,  or  rather  a  habit,  in  which  you  seem  to 
me  to  be  wanting,  to  wit,  the  love  of  co7itemplatio7i.  Take  life, 
the  passions,  and  yourself,  as  a  subject  for  intellectual  exercise ; 
you  revolt  against  the  injustice  of  the  world,  its  baseness,  its 
tyranny,  and  all  the  turpitude  and  nauseousness  of  existence. 
But  do  you  kfwtv  these  things  thoroughly  }  Have  you  studied 
everything  .^  Are  you  God  .''  Who  tells  you  that  your  human 
judgment  is  infallible  .''  that  your  sentiments  do  not  deceive 
you  ?  How  can  we,  with  our  limited  senses  and  our  finite 
intelligence,  reach  an  absolute  knowledge  of  the  true  and  the 
good  ?  Shall  we  ever  grasp  the  infinite  ?  If  one  wishes  to  live, 
one  must  renounce  the  notion  of  having  a  clear  conception  of 
anything  whatever.  Humanity  is  so  ;  our  business  is  not  to 
change  it,  but  to  know  it. 

' .  .  .  I  take  an  example  :  you  are  much  concerned  about  the 
injustices  of  this  world,  about  socialism,  about  politics.  Let  it 
be  so  !  Well,  first  read  all  those  who  have  had  the  same  ambi- 
tions as  yourself;  search  the  Utopians  and  the  dry  thinkers. 
And  then,  before  allowing  yourself  a  final  opinion,  you  will  have 
to  study  a  somewhat  modern  science  which  is  much  talked  of, 
but  little  cultivated  ;  I  mean  Political  Economy.  You  will  be 
astounded  to  find  yourself  change  your  opinions  from  day  to 
day  as  a  man  changes  his  shirt.  Never  mind  !  There  will  be 
no  bitterness  in  your  scepticism,  for  you  sit,  as  it  were,  at  the 
comedy  of  Humanity,  and  History  will  seem  to  have  passed 
over  the  world  for  you  alone. 


224  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Trivial  people^  limited  people,  presumptuous  and  enthusiastic 
minds,  want  to  have  a  conclusion  in  everything;  they  seek  for 
the  aim  of  life  and  the  dimensions  of  infinity.  They  take  a 
handful  of  sand  in  their  poor  little  fists  and  say  to  the  ocean,  "  I 
am  going  to  count  the  grains  on  thy  shores."  But  as  the  grains 
slip  between  their  fingers,  and  the  calculation  is  long,  they 
stamp  and  cry.  Do  you  know  what  one  should  do  on  the  sea- 
shore ?     Kneel  or  walk.     Do  you  walk  ! 

'  No  great  genius  has  concluded,  and  no  great  book  ends, 
because  humanity  itself  is  always  on  the  mai'ch,  and  does  not 
conclude.  There  is  no  conclusion  in  Homer,  nor  in  Shake- 
speare, nor  in  Goethe,  nor  in  the  Bible  itself.  And  so  the 
fashionable  phrase,  "  social  problem,"  is  to  me  extremely  revolt- 
ing. The  day  on  which  it  is  solved  will  be  the  last  of  the 
planet.  Life  is  an  eternal  problem,  and  history  too,  and  every- 
thing. Figures  are  being  perpetually  added  to  the  addition 
sum.  How  many  spokes  can  you  count  in  a  revolving  wheel  ? 
The  nineteenth  century,  in  the  pride  of  its  emancipation, 
believes  itself  to  have  discovered  the  sun.  For  example,  it 
is  said  that  the  Reformation  was  the  preparation  for  the  French 
Revolution.  That  would  be  true  if  everything  had  been  going 
to  stop  at  that  point,  but  this  Revolution  is  itself  the  prepara- 
tion for  another  condition  ;  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Our  most 
advanced  ideas  will  seem  very  ridiculous,  and  very  backward, 
when  we  look  at  them  over  our  shoulders.  I  bet  that  in  as 
little  as  fifty  years  the  phrases,  social  problem,  moralisation 
of  the  masses,  progress,  and  democracy,  will  have  passed 
into  the  condition  of  lumber,  and  will  seem  as  grotesque  as 
those  of  sensibility,  nature,  predestined  and  gentle  affinities, 
so  much  in  fashion  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

'  It  is  because  I  believe  in  the  perpetual  evolution  of  humanity 
and  its  ever-changing  forms  that  I  hate  all  the  frames  into 
which  people  try  to  stuff  it  by  force,  all  the  formalities  with 
which  it  is  circumscribed,  the  plans  that  are  dreamed  of  on  its 
behalf.  Democracy  is  no  more  its  last  word  than  slavery  has 
been,  than  feudalism,  than  monarchy.  The  horizon  perceived 
by  human  eyes  is  never  the  shore,  because  beyond  this  horizon 
there  is  another,  and  so  on  for  ever !  Thus  to  me  it  seems  a 
silly  form  of  insanity  to  seek  for  the  best  of  religions,  or  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  225 

best  of  governments.  The  best,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  is 
the  one  which  is  on  its  deathbed,  because  it  is  making  room  for 
another. 

'  I  owe  you  a  bit  of  a  grudge  for  having  said  to  me  in  one  of 
your  preceding  letters  that  you  wished  for  "  compulsory  educa- 
tion "  for  everybody.  For  my  part,  I  abominate  everything 
that  is  compulsory,  every  law,  all  government,  all  rule.  Who 
are  you,  pray,  O  Society,  to  force  me  to  anything.^  What 
God  made  you  my  master  }  Observe  that  you  fall  back  into 
the  old  injustices  of  the  past.  The  individual  will  no  longer  be 
oppressed  by  a  despot,  but  by  the  crowd,  the  public  benefit,  the 
eternal  "  reasons  of  state,"  that  phrase  of  all  peoples,  the  maxim 
of  Robespierre.  I  prefer  the  desert ;  I  return  to  the  Bedouins, 
who  are  free.  .  .  .' 

These  divagations  are  followed  by  a  thoughtful  review  of 
some  Mss,  which  Mademoiselle  Leroyer  de  Chantepie  had 
sent. 

The  following  extract  from  a  letter  written  at  this  time 
to  Ernest  Feydeau,  who  seems  from  other  evidence  to  have 
been  a  person  of  a  somewhat  amusing,  excessive  vanity, 
gives  an  illustration  of  Flauberfs  conception  of  the  claims 
of  friendship  : — 

'  No,  my  dear  sir,  I  have  never  perpetrated  any  meanness  in 
relation  to  you,  even  by  gesture ;  and  befoi-e  treating  a  man  as 
a  sneak,  you  should  have  proofs.  I  think  this  assumption  gra- 
tuitous, and  in  the  worst  possible  taste,  my  good  fellow.  I 
never  allow  anybody  to  run  down  my  friends  in  my  presence  (it 
is  a  privilege  that  I  reserve  to  myself).  They  belong  to  me  :  I 
allow  no  one  to  touch  them.  For  the  rest,  cheer  up  !  Your 
enemy,  Aubryet,  spoke  no  evil  of  your  Lordship  to  me.  I 
only  saw  him  for  about  twenty  minutes.  As  soon  as  dinner 
was  finished  he  went  on  board.  There — and  you  are  an  imper- 
tinent fellow. 

'  Your  bad  opinion  of  me  comes  from  the  fact  that  one  day 
I  did  not  take  your  side  in  an  argument.  The  fact  is  that  I 
thought  you  both  equally  ridiculous,  and  the  meanness  would 
have  been  to  support  theories  that  were  not  mine. 

p 


226  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  You  shall  pay  me  for  all  these  insults  in  the  review  that  I 
propose  to  write  on  your  ilte,  big  lunatic !  Meanwhile  you 
may  boast  of  having  written  a  certain  seventeenth  chapter, 
which  is  a  gem.' 

The  letter  ends  humorously  enough,  but  apparently  did 
not  satisfy  the  outraged  Feydeau,  for  we  have  another, 
which  begins  as  follows  : — 

'  My  good  fellow,  I  think  it  is  always  a  proper  thing  to  wash 
one's  dirty  linen.  Now  I  wash  mine  straight  off.  I  did  owe  you 
a  grudge,  and  I  still  owe  you  a  bit  of  a  grudge  for  having  sup- 
posed that  I  said  anything  evil  of  your  person  or  your  works 
with  Aubryet.  I  am  now  speaking  very  seriously.  It  shocked 
me,  wounded  me.  That  is  the  way  I  am  made.  Know  that 
that  particular  form  of  meanness  is  completely  antipathetic  to 
me.  I  never  allow  anybody  to  say  more  evil  to  me  of  my 
friends  than  I  am  in  the  habit  of  saying  to  their  faces.  And 
when  a  stranger  opens  his  mouth  to  abuse  one  of  them,  I 
promptly  close  it  for  him.  The  contrary  proceeding  is  very 
fashionable,  as  I  know,  but  it  is  no  custom  of  mine.  Let  there 
be  no  further  talk  about  it,  and  if  you  don't  understand  me,  so 
much  the  worse  for  you.  Let  us  talk  of  less  serious  things,  and 
do  me  the  honour  for  the  futui'e  not  to  judge  of  me  as  of  the 
first  person  you  meet. 

'  Know  besides,  O  Feydeau,  that  I  never  humbug.  There  is 
no  more  serious  animal  in  the  world  than  myself.  I  laugh 
sometimes,  but  joke  very  little,  and  less  now  than  ever.' 

Feydeau  must  have  given  occasion  to  many  amusing  scenes 
when  in  Flauberfs  society.     For  example  : — 

'  Why  do  you  persist  in  torturing  my  nei'ves  by  maintaining 
against  me  that  a  plot  of  cabbages  is  more  beautiful  than  the 
desert }  You  will  pennit  me  to  beg  you  first  to  go  and  see  the 
desert  before  talking  about  it.  But  in  this  preference  given  to 
the  vulgar  vegetable  I  can  only  see  a  desire  to  make  me  furious.' 

Mademoiselle  Leroyer  de  Chantepie  could  stir  a  gentler 

mood : — 

'  Have  you  noticed  how  we  love  our  sufferings .''     You  cling 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  227 

to  your  religious  ideas,  which  cause  you  so  much  pain,  and  I  to 
my  chimera  of  style,  which  wears  me  out  body  and  soul.  But 
perhaps  it  is  only  by  our  sufferings  that  we  are  worth  any- 
thing, for  they  are,  after  all,  aspirations.  There  are  so  many 
people  whose  pleasures  are  so  filthy,  and  ideal  so  limited, 
that  we  ought  to  bless  our  misfortunes  if  they  make  us  more 
worthy.  .  .  .  Yes,  one  should  read  Spinoza.  The  people  who 
accuse  him  of  atheism  are  donkeys.  Goethe  used  to  say : 
"  When  I  feel  worried  I  read  the  Ethics  (of  Spinoza)  over  again." 
You  will  perhaps  have  the  good  fortune,  like  Goethe,  to  be 
calmed  by  this  grand  reading.  I  lost  ten  years  ago  the  man 
whom  I  loved  best  in  the  world,  Alfred  Lepoittevin.  In  his 
last  illness  he  spent  his  nights  reading  Spinoza. 

'I  have  never  known  anybody  (and  I  know  a  good  many 
people)  of  so  transcendental  a  mind  as  this  friend  of  whom  I 
tell  you.  We  used  sometimes  to  spend  six  continuous  hours 
talking  metaphysics.  We  have  been  high,  I  assure  you.  Since 
his  death  I  converse  with  hardly  any  one ;  I  chatter,  or  I  hold 
my  tongue.  Alas  !  what  a  city  of  the  dead  is  the  human  heart ! 
Why  go  to  the  cemeteries }  Let  us  open  our  reminiscences, 
how  many  tombs  ! 

'  How  was  your  youth  spent  ?  Mine  was  vei'y  beautiful  in- 
wardly. I  had  enthusiasms  which  I  now  seek  for  in  vain ; 
friends,  alas  !  who  are  dead  or  changed.  A  great  confidence  in 
myself,  splendid  leaps  of  the  soul,  something  impetuous  in  my 
whole  personality.  I  dreamed  of  love,  glory,  beauty.  My  heart 
was  as  wide  as  the  world,  and  I  breathed  all  the  winds  of 
heaven.  And  then  gradually  I  have  grown  callous,  tarnished. 
No !  I  accuse  nobody  but  myself !  I  sank  myself  in  absurd 
sentimental  gymnastics.  I  took  a  pleasure  in  fighting  my 
senses,  and  in  torturing  my  heart.  I  repelled  the  human  in- 
toxications which  were  offered  me.  Furious  with  myself,  I 
uprooted  the  man  with  both  my  hands,  two  hands  full  of  pride 
and  strength.  I  wished  to  make  of  that  tree  with  verdant 
foliage  a  bare  column  to  place  on  its  summit,  as  on  an  altar,  I 
know  not  what  divine  flame.  .  .  .  That  is  why  I  find  myself  at 
six-and- thirty  so  empty,  and  at  times  so  fatigued  !  Is  not  this 
story  of  mine  that  I  tell  you  a  little  like  your  own  } ' 


228  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Early  in  1858  a  letter  to  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes  con- 
tains the  following  passage  : — 

'  The  manner  in  which  all  religions  talk  of  God  revolts  me  ; 
they  treat  Him  with  so  much  certainty,  levity,  familiarity. 
The  priests,  who  have  this  name  always  on  their  lips,  irritate 
me  above  all.  It  is  with  them  a  kind  of  chronic  sneeze — "the 
goodness  of  God,  the  wrath  of  God,  to  offend  God,"  these  are 
their  phrases.  It  is  considering  Him  as  if  He  were  a  man,  and, 
what 's  worse,  a  middle-class  man.  They  are  further  wild  to 
decorate  Him  with  attributes,  as  savages  put  feathers  on  their 
fetish.  Some  paint  infinity  blue,  others  black.  Utter  savagery 
all  that.  We  are  still  cropping  the  grass,  and  walking  on  all- 
fours  in  spite  of  balloons.  The  ideal  that  humanity  forms  for 
itself  of  God  does  not  go  beyond  that  of  an  Oriental  monarch 
surrounded  by  his  court.  The  religious  ideal  is,  in  fact,  several 
centuries  behind  the  social  ideal,  and  there  are  heaps  of 
mountebanks  who  make  a  pretence  of  falling  down  faint  with 
admiration  in  its  presence.' 

Mademoiselle  Leroyer  de  Chantepie  was  by  way  of  being 
an  authoress,  and  Flaubert  took  pains  to  find  suitable  books 
for  her  to  read,  to  criticise  what  she  had  already  written ;  at 
the  same  time  he  would  expand  in  personal  confidences ;  he 
liked  playing  the  part  of  spiritual  director ;  thus  he  says, 
writing  on  the  26th  of  December  1858  : — 

'  I  seem  to  forget  you  !  Nothing  of  the  kind  !  My  thoughts 
often  travel  to  you,  and  I  address  prayers  to  the  Unknown  God 
of  whom  St.  Paul  spoke  for  the  tranquillisation  and  satisfaction 
of  your  heart.  You  hold  in  my  soul  a  very  high — a  very  pure 
place — a  wide  space  ;  indeed,  you  would  hardly  credit  the  senti- 
mental amazement  that  your  first  letters  caused  me.  I  am  in- 
debted to  you  for  having  felt  myself  at  once  better  and  more 
intelligent  because  of  you.' 

Two  months  later  we  have  a  letter  which  would  have 
made  our  old  friend  Madame  Colet  rave : — 

*  That  is  a  sad  story  that  of  the  young  girl,  your  relative,  who 
went  mad  in  consequence  of  religious  notions,  but  it  is  a  com- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  229 

mon  story.  One  must  have  a  robust  constitution  to  mount  on 
the  peaks  of  mysticism  without  losing  one's  head.  And  then  in 
all  that,  and  especially  in  the  case  of  women,  there  ai'e  questions 
of  temperament  which  complicate  the  malady.  Do  you  not  see 
that  they  are  all  in  love  with  Adonis  ?  What  they  ask  for  is 
the  eternal  husband.  Ascetic  or  voluptuous,  they  still  dream  of 
love,  of  the  great  love ;  and  to  cure  them  (at  any  rate  tem- 
porarily) they  do  not  want  an  idea  but  a  fact,  a  husband,  a 
child,  a  lover.  To  you  this  seems  equivocal.  But  I  was  not 
the  inventor  of  human  nature.  I  am  convinced  that  the  most 
extravagant  material  appetites  are  unconsciously  formulated  by 
bursts  of  idealism,  in  the  same  way  that  the  most  impure  ex- 
travagances of  the  flesh  are  engendered  by  a  pure  longing  for 
Jthe  impossible,  an  ethereal  aspiration  after  the  supreme  pleasure. 
And  further,  I  do  not  know,  and  nobody  knows,  what  these  two 
words  soul  and  body  mean ;  where  the  one  ends  and  the  other 
begins.  We  feel  forces,  and  that  is  all.  Materialism  and 
spiritualism  still  weigh  too  heavily  on  the  science  of  man  to 
enable  us  to  study  all  these  phenomena  impartially.  The 
anatomy  of  the  human  heart  has  not  yet  been  done.  Then 
how  can  one  cure  it }  It  will  be  the  special  glory  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  have  begun  these  i*esearches.  The  historic 
sense  is  quite  new  in  the  world.  People  are  now  about  begin- 
ning to  study  ideas  like  facts,  and  to  dissect  beliefs  like 
organisms.  There  is  a  whole  school  working  in  the  shade,  and 
which  will  do  something,  of  that  I  am  sure. 

'  Do  you  read  the  fine  works  of  Renan  }  Do  you  know  the 
books  of  Lanfrey,  of  Maury  ? 

'  As  for  me,  in  these  latter  days  I  have  incidentally  returned 
to  those  psycho-medical  studies  which  charmed  me  so  much  ten 
years  ago  when  I  was  writing  my  Saint  Anthoiiy.  In  connection 
with  my  Salammho,  I  have  occupied  myself  with  hysteria  and 
mental  alienation.  There  are  treasures  to  be  discovered  in  all 
that.  But  life  is  short  and  art  is  long,  indeed  almost  impossible 
when  one  is  writing  in  a  language  worn  down  to  the  thread, 
worm-eaten,  debilitated,  and  ci-acking  under  the  finger  at  every 
effort.  What  despairs,  what  agonies  are  caused  by  this  love  of 
the  beautiful !  For  the  rest,  I  have  undertaken  an  unrealisable 
task.     Never  mind  !     If  I  make  some  few  noble  imaginations 


230  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

dream,  I  shall  not  have  lost  my  time.     1  am  barely  yet  at  the 
quarter  of  my  work,     I  have  still  enough  to  do  for  two  years.' 

This  light  thrown  on  the  character  of  Salammbo  is  sug- 
gestive ;  without  it  the  reader  of  the  romance  of  Carthage 
would  hardly  have  guessed  the  precise  significance  which 
Flaubert  attached  to  the  vague  yearnings  of  his  heroine,  her 
prayers,  her  fastings,  and  religious  exaltation. 

Madame  Roger  des  Genettes  also  consulted  her  director 
from  time  to  time,  '  the  confessor  of  the  ladies  of  disillusion,"' 
as  he  once  styled  himself  in  writing  to  Georges  Sand. 

'  Your  letter  of  this  morning  made  me  think  for  a  long 
while.  I  prefer  these  truthful  cries  to  efforts  to  laugh  and 
joke;  for  you  are  entirely  ignorant  of  what  joy  really  is.  You 
want  that  energy,  that  natural  gift.  Then  weep  freely  on  the 
heart  of  your  friend ;  he  will  try  to  wipe  away  your  tears, 
although  he  is  wounded  by  your  injustice.  You  say  you  do  not 
know  me  any  more  than  a  language  of  which  one  writes  but  a 
few  words.  And  yet  what  have  I  concealed  from  you  ?  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  am  naturally  open.  Nothing  is  less  compli- 
cated than  my  mind.  But  you  have  been  spoiled  by  the  world, 
and  Catholicism.  You  are  full  of  sophistries,  and  confused 
sentiments  which  prevent  you  from  seeing  truth.  God  had 
made  you  better,  and  it  is  for  that  reason  that  I  love  you,  for 
you  must  have  suffered  horribly,  and  you  suffer  still,  poor  dear 
friend ! 

'  For  my  part,  I  presume  to  say  that  I  know  you  ;  now  in  your 
life  and  in  your  soul  I  catch  glimpses  of  gulfs  of  weariness  and 
sorrows,  a  solitude,  an  eternal  Sahara,  which  you  traverse  cease- 
lessly. I  know  nobody  so  profoundly  sceptical  as  you  are,  and 
you  torture  yourself  in  every  possible  way  to  believe.  I  irritate 
you  horribly,  and  perhaps  that  is  the  very  reason  why  you  cling 
to  me,  I  find  fault  with  you  for  having  treated  me  like  any- 
body else,  when  I  loved  you,  as  nobody  will  love  you.  .  .  . 

'.  .  .  It  is  however  so  easy  to  have  a  coal-heaver's  faith,  to 
admire  what  is  admirable,  to  laugh  at  what  is  funny,  to  hate 
the  ugly,  the  false,  the  obscure,  to  be,  in  one  word,  human,  I  do 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  231 

not  say  humanitarian,  to  read  history,  and  to  warm  oneself  in 
the  sun  !  So  little  is  wanted  to  fill  a  human  soul !  I  hear  the 
objection  by  anticipation ;  I  see  coming  up  the  long  row  of 
those  who  have  sung  of  the  insufficiency  of  earthly  life,  of  the 
nothingness  of  science,  the  natural  feebleness  of  human  affec- 
tions. But  are  you  quite  sure  of  knowing  life  ?  Have  you 
been  to  the  bottom  of  science  ?  Are  you  not  too  feeble  for 
passion  ?  Do  not  let  us  find  fault  with  alcohol,  but  with  our 
own  digestive  organs,  or  our  own  intemperance.  Who  is  there 
among  us  who  imceasingly  struggles  to  bring  himself  nearer  to 
God  without  hope  of  reward,  without  personal  interest,  without 
expectation  of  profit .''  Who  is  there  who  works  to  be  bigger 
and  better,  to  love  more  strongly,  to  feel  more  intensely,  to 
understand  more .''... 

' .  .  .  You  know  well  that  I  do  not  share  your  opinion  of 
the  personality  of  M.  de  Voltaire  in  any  way.  For  me  he  is  a 
saint.  Why  persist  in  seeing  a  low  comedian  in  a  man  who  was 
a  fanatic .''  M.  de  Maistre  has  said  of  him,  in  his  treatise  on 
sacrifices,  "  There  is  no  flower  in  the  garden  of  intellect  which 
has  not  been  defiled  by  this  caterpillar."  I  can  no  more  forgive 
M.  de  Maistre  for  this  phrase  than  I  pardon  MM.  Stendhal, 
Veuillot,  Proudhon,  for  all  their  verdicts.  The  consumptive, 
anti-artistic  breed  is  the  same.  Temperament  stands  for  a  good 
deal  in  our  literary  affections.  Now  I  like  the  great  Voltaire 
as  much  as  I  detest  the  great  Rousseau ;  and  I  take  the  differ- 
ence in  our  estimates  very  much  to  heart.  I  am  surprised  that 
you  do  not  admire  this  great  pulse,  which  moved  the  world. 
Can  such  results  be  obtained  by  the  insincere  .''  In  this  verdict 
of  yours  you  belong  to  the  school  of  the  eighteenth  century 
which  saw  in  religious  enthusiasm  only  the  mummery  of  priests. 
Let  us  bow  before  all  altars.  Li  short,  that  particular  man 
seems  to  me  burning,  eager,  convinced,  superb.  His  "  Let  us 
crush  the  infamous "  affects  me  like  the  shout  of  a  crusade. 
His  whole  intellect  was  an  engine  of  war.  And  what  makes 
me  particularly  fond  of  him  is  the  disgust  with  which  the 
Voltairians  inspire  me ;  people  who  laugh  at  great  things ! 
Did  he  laugh — he  }     He  gnashed  his  teeth.  .  .  ." 

Eight  years  later  Flaubert  wrote  the  following  letter  to 


232  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Mademoiselle    Leroyer   de    Chantepie,  with  whom   he    still 
maintained  an  intermittent  correspondence  : — 

'Paris,  June  l6,  1867. 

'  The  pleasure  that  it  gives  me  to  receive  your  letters,  dear 
lady,  is  counterbalanced  by  the  sorrow  that  is  revealed  in  them. 
What  a  fine  soul  you  possess !  and  what  a  dismal  existence  is 
yours  !     I  think  I  understand  it.     That  is  why  I  love  you. 

'  I,  like  you,  have  known  the  intense  melancholy  which  the 
Angelus  brings  on  summer  evenings.  Calm  as  I  am  on  the 
surface,  I  too  have  been  ravaged,  and — must  I  say  it  ? — am  still 
so  sometimes.  But  convinced  of  this  truth,  that  as  soon  as  a 
man  thinks  of  himself  he  is  ill,  I  try  to  intoxicate  myself  with 
art  as  others  do  with  brandy.  By  mere  strength  of  will  one 
arrives  at  losing  the  notion  of  one's  own  personality.  Believe 
me,  one  is  not  happy,  but  one  suffers  less, 

'No — undeceive  yourself!  I  never  scoff  at  your  religious 
sentiments,  not  even  in  the  deepest  depths  of  my  conscious- 
ness. All  piety  attracts  me,  and  Catholic  piety  above  all.  But 
I  do  not  understand  the  nahire  of  your  doubts.  Have  they 
reference  to  dogma,  or  to  yourself.''  If  I  understand  what  you 
write  to  me,  it  seems  to  me  that  you  feel  yourself  iniivorthy. 
Then  be  comforted,  for  you  sin  by  excess  of  humility,  which  is 
a  great  virtue.  Unworthy  !  Why  }  Poor  dear  sorrowing  soul 
that  you  are  !  Take  heart.  Your  God  is  good,  and  you  have 
suffered  enough  to  make  Him  love  you.  But  if  you  have  doubts 
of  the  very  foundations  of  religion  (and  this  is  what  I  believe, 
whatever  you  may  say),  why  distress  yourself  about  failing  in 
duties  which  then  cease  to  be  duties  ?  Suppose  a  sincere 
Catholic  to  turn  Mussulman  (for  one  motive  or  another) ;  that  is 
a  crime  in  the  eyes  of  religion,  as  in  those  of  philosophy ;  but 
if  this  Catholic  is  not  a  believer,  his  change  of  religion  has  no 
more  importance  than  a  change  of  coat.  Everything  depends 
upon  the  value  which  we  assign  to  things.  We  ourselves  make 
morality  and  virtue.  The  cannibal,  who  eats  his  fellow,  is  as 
innocent  as  the  child  who  sucks  his  barley-sugar.  Why  then 
afflict  yourself  at  not  being  able  to  confess  or  to  communicate, 
since  you  cannot  ?  From  the  moment  that  this  duty  is  no 
longer    practicable   it   ceases   to   be   a   duty.     But   no  !     The 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  233 

admiration  that  you  evince  for  Jean  Reynaud  proves  to  me  that 
you  are  full  in  the  current  of  contemporary  criticism,  and  yet 
you  cling  by  inclination,  by  habit,  and  by  your  personal  nature 
to  the  beliefs  of  the  past.  If  you  wish  to  get  out  of  this  diffi- 
culty, I  repeat  to  you,  you  must  take  a  line ;  resolutely  fling 
yourself  upon  the  one  or  the  other.  Be  with  Saint  Theresa  or 
Voltaire.     Whatever  people  may  say,  there  is  no  mean  term, 

'  Humanity  at  the  present  day  is  exactly  like  you.  The 
blood  of  the  Middle  Ages  still  pulses  in  its  veins,  and  it 
pants  for  the  mighty  air  of  future  centuries,  which  only  bring 
it  storms. 

'And  all  that  because  one  insists  on  a  solution.  Oh,  pride 
of  man  !  A  solution  !  The  end  !  The  Cause  !  But  we  should 
be  God  if  we  held  the  cause,  and  the  further  we  go  the  further 
it  will  retire,  infinitely,  because  our  horizon  will  widen.  The 
more  perfect  the  telescopes,  the  more  numerous  the  stars.  We 
are  condemned  to  roll  in  darkness  and  tears. 

'  When  I  look  at  one  of  those  little  stars  in  the  Milky  Way,  I 
say  to  myself  that  the  earth  is  no  bigger  than  one  of  those 
sparks.  And  I,  who  gravitate  for  a  moment  upon  that  spark, 
who  am  I  ?  What  are  we  ?  This  sentiment  of  my  lowness,  of 
my  insignificance,  comforts  me.  I  seem  to  have  become  a  grain 
of  dust  lost  in  space,  and  yet  I  form  a  pai*t  of  the  unlimited 
greatness  which  enfolds  me.  I  have  never  understood  that 
that  could  be  a  despairing  idea ;  for  it  might  well  be,  that 
behind  the  black  curtain  there  was  nothing.  The  infinite,  for 
the  rest,  sinks  all  our  conceptions,  and  from  the  moment  that 
it  is,  why  should  there  be  an  end  for  so  relative  a  thing  as  our- 
selves ? 

*  Imagine  a  man  who,  with  balances  a  thousand  cubits  high, 
should  wish  to  weigh  the  sand  of  the  sea.  When  he  had  filled 
his  two  scales  they  would  overflow,  and  his  work  would  be  no 
further  advanced  than  at  the  beginning. 

'  All  the  philosophies  are  at  that  point.  They  may  say,  if  they 
please,  "Still  there  is  a  weight,  there  is  a  certain  figure  which 
we  should  know,  let  us  try,"  the  scales  are  magnified,  the  rope 
breaks,  and  always,  always  so  !  Then  be  more  Chiistian,  and 
resign  yourself  to  ignorance.  You  ask  me  what  books  to  read. 
Read  Montaigne  ;  read  him  slowly,  steadily.      He  will  calm  you. 


234  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

And  do  not  listen  to  people  who  talk  of  his  egotism.  You  will 
like  him,  you  will  see.  But  do  not  read,  as  the  children  read, 
to  amuse  yourself,  nor  as  ambitious  people  read,  to  get  in- 
struction. No  !  read  to  live  !  Make  an  intellectual  atmosphere 
for  your  soul,  which  shall  be  composed  of  the  emanation  of  all 
the  great  minds.  Study  Shakespeare  and  Goethe  thoroughly. 
Read  translations  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  authors, — Homer, 
Petronius,  Plautus,  Apuleius,  etc.  And  when  something  bores 
you,  fling  yourself  into  it,  you  will  soon  understand  it.  That 
will  be  a  satisfaction  for  you.  It  is  a  question  of  working,  do 
you  understand  me  }  I  do  not  like  seeing  a  nature  so  fine  as 
yours  engulfed  in  vexation  and  idleness.  Widen  your  horizon, 
and  you  will  breathe  more  freely.  If  you  were  a  man,  and 
were  only  twenty  years  old,  I  would  advise  you  to  travel  round 
the  world.  Well — make  the  tour  of  the  world  in  your  own 
room !  Study  a  thing  that  you  have  no  suspicion  of — the 
World !  But  I  recommend  you  Montaigne  before  everything 
else.  Read  him  from  one  end  to  the  other,  and  when  you  have 
got  to  the  end,  begin  again.  The  advice  (doctor's  advice 
doubtless)  that  is  given  to  you  seems  to  me  unintelligent.  You 
must,  on  the  contrary,  fatigue  your  thought.  Do  not  believe 
that  it  is  worn  out.  It  is  not  from  cramp  that  it  is  suffering,  but 
from  convulsions.  These  folk  for  the  rest  understand  nothing 
of  the  soul.     I  know  them, — there  !" 

Flaubert  never  met  Mademoiselle  Leroyer  de  Chantepie. 
If  he  had  done  so,  what  then  ?  To  us  she  appears,  through 
his  letters,  a  somewhat  vaporous  and  sentimental  female,  who 
hooked  herself  on  to  the  author  of  Madame  Bovary^  touched 
the  string  of  tenderness  in  him,  and  was  initiated,  as  a  reward, 
into  mysteries  beyond  her  comprehension.  Whether  she  was 
comforted  in  the  contemplation  of  her  own  nothingness  is 
open  to  doubt ;  but,  for  all  that,  Flaubert's  position  with 
regard  to  religion  is  an  essentially  sound  one.  What  we  are 
concerned  with  is  the  rules  which  regulate  the  infinitely  little 
corner  of  space  in  which  we  live,  our  own  immediate  sur- 
roundings.    Philosophers  may  define  God  and  the  Infinite 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  235 

as  they  please,  none  the  less  we  have  to  eat  our  three  square 
meals  a  day,  and  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  convictions 
of  those  around  us ;  if  we  cannot  fit  to  the  measure  of  our 
neighbours,  the  only  comfort  to  be  found  is  in  intellectually 
testing  it,  and  rising  above  it.  To  be  irritated  at  it  is 
essentially  feeble;  the  motives  which  impel  the  different 
individuals  who  form  the  society  in  which  we  perforce  live 
are  by  us  unalterable ;  then  let  us  understand  them ;  and  to 
understand  them  we  must  study  in  considerable  detail  our 
own  little  corner  of  space.  We  may  arrive  at  the  conclusion 
at  which  Flaubert  arrived,  that  though  the  basis  of  morality 
is  not  demonstrably  supernatural,  the  necessity  of  morality 
in  civilised  society  is  inevitable. 

It  is,  in  fact,  not  possible  to  construct  any  ethical  system 
whereby  it  could  be  demonstrated  to  the  common  man  that, 
from  a  self-regarding  point  of  view,  it  is  to  his  advantage  to 
deny  himself  the  gratification  of  his  passions,  except  in  cases 
in  which  his  bodily  health  is  immediately  affected ;  and  the 
association  of  morality  with  supernatural  sanctions  is  simply 
a  statement  of  this  fact ;  on  the  other  hand,  that  human 
society  is  impossible  where  the  individual  emancipates  him- 
self from  self-denial  and  self-control,  is  equally  obvious. 
Therefore  the  man  who  refuses  the  supernatural  sanction  is 
none  the  less  bound  to  accept  the  moral  restraints  imposed 
by  the  conditions  of  the  society  in  which  he  lives.  He 
wastes  his  time  if  he  battles  with  them ;  he  is  apt  to  be 
martyred  if  he  makes  war  upon  the  creed  with  which  they 
are  supposed  to  be  inextricably  involved. 

The  man  who  makes  himself  miserable  because  he  cannot 
accept  the  religious  convictions  of  his  neighbour  is  intellec- 
tually absurd ;  for  he  must  either  know  more,  in  which  case 
he  should  congratulate  himself,  or  feel  himself  below  these 
convictions,  in  which  case  he  should  study  them,  live  up  to 


236  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

them ;  he  still  has  an  ambition  and  a  standard.  The  one 
point  on  which  Flaubert  only  lightly  touched — the  hold  that 
the  outward  practices  enjoined  by  religion  still  maintain 
upon  the  person  who  has  begun  to  apply  criticism  to  them — 
is  after  all  the  real  practical  difficulty.  At  the  bottom  it  is 
not  the  loss  of  faith  which  the  sceptically-minded  person 
regrets,  it  is  the  companionship  of  the  human  beings  to 
whom  he  has  been  accustomed.  Intellectually  it  was  quite 
correct  to  say  that  the  sorrows  of  the  sceptic  arise  from  not 
going  far  enough,  from  trying  to  halt  between  St.  Theresa 
and  Voltaire ;  that  the  student  of  humanity,  the  man  who 
does  not  set  himself  to  build  up  an  ideal  of  what  men  should 
be,  but  who  fearlessly  tries  to  find  out  what  man  is,  has  no 
further  need  to  vex  himself  with  his  own  shortcomings  in 
the  matter  of  religious  conviction.  But  this  intellectual 
wellbeing  will  not  comfort  the  son  who  finds  that  between 
himself  and  a  dearly  loved  mother  a  wall  has  grown  up,  that 
a  whole  world  of  sympathies  which  they  shared  has  become 
on  his  side  a  region  which  is  entered  with  conscious  conces- 
sion to  weakness  ;  worse  than  all,  that  she  cannot  accept  the 
concession,  Flaubert  himself  was  never  called  upon  to 
grapple  with  this  particular  trouble,  and  for  that  reason  he 
unden-ates  its  magnitude  in  all  its  varieties.  Nor  had  he  any 
experience  of  the  terrible  isolation  of  the  dissident.  It  is 
from  this  that  the  majority  of  sceptical  souls  shrink.  The 
long  process  by  which  the  savage  has  been  tamed  into  the 
civilised  or  civilisable  man  has  left  its  impress  upon  each 
individual  in  many  ways ;  the  dread  of  solitariness  is  part  of 
the  price  which  the  individual  has  to  pay  for  the  comfort 
of  society, 

Flaubert  never  attempted  to  construct  a  system ;  his 
letters  were  not  written  for  publication,  and  those  who 
endeavour  to  find  a  system  in  them,  or  construct  a  system 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  237 

out  of  them,  will  be  wofuUy  disappointed.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  good  to  know  how  he  expressed  himself  intimately 
on  the  questions  of  faith  and  creed,  if  only  as  a  contradiction 
to  the  prevalent  assumption  that  a  person  who  intellectually 
rejects  a  creed  necessarily  quarrels  with  it  or  scoffs  at  it. 
There  is  a  reverent  revolt  as  well  as  an  irreverent  rejection ; 
and  it  is  possible  to  acknowledge  with  all  humility  that  the 
religious  attitude  '  makes  for  righteousness  "* ;  also  to  feel  that 
the  mere  scoffer  is  infinitely  contemptible,  though  the  per- 
sonality of  particular  upholders  of  this  or  that  dogma  may 
be  open  to  ridicule,  and  even  to  stronger  condemnation. 
When  Napoleon  iii.  took  religion  under  his  protection  the 
bitter  speech  Avas  inevitable ;  but  it  was  not  religion  that 
was  the  object  of  Flaubert's  mockery,  rather  those  mean- 
spirited  officials  of  religion  who  could  accept  for  their  faith 
the  patronage  of  a  Louis  Napoleon. 

Flauberfs  intellectual  position  on  religious  questions  is 
clearly  seen  in  the  St.  Anthony ;  his  estimate  of  the  scoffer 
in  the  person  of  Homais ;  while  the  Abbe  Bournisien,  in 
spite  of  his  mental  incapacity,  is  one  of  the  very  few  char- 
acters in  Madame  Bovary  whom  one  is  disposed  to  respect. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

DEATH  OF  LOUIS  BOUILHET HIS  AUTISTIC  IDEALS FLAUBERt's 

LETTER  TO  THE  TOWN  COUNCIL  OF  ROUEN 

In  1869  Flaubert  suffered  a  great  loss,  Louis  Bouilhet  died 
on  the  18th  July.  In  the  annals  of  friendship  it  is  not  easy 
to  find  a  pair  who  were  so  closely  united  as  these  two  men. 
Both  had  other  friends,  women  as  well  as  men,  but  the  tie 
which  bound  them  was  never  strained  by  jealousy  or 
weakened  by  diffusion  of  affection. 

There  are  comparatively  few  letters  to  Bouilhet ;  for  many 
years  the  friends  met  regularly  once  a  Aveek,  and  the  periods 
during  which  they  were  separated  were  not  of  long  duration. 

For  Bouilhet  Flaubert  would  do  what  he  would  not  do  for 
himself, — assail  publishers,  storm  theatres,  placard  advertise- 
ments ;  when  '  Madame  de  Montarcy  "*  was  produced  at  the 
Odeon,  Flaubert  simply  took  possession  of  the  stage,  the 
actors,  the  box-office,  the  attendants  in  the  theatre ;  at  the 
rehearsals  he  carried  all  before  him  in  a  whirlwind  of  flying 
dressing-gown ;  and  after  the  poet's  death  he  broke  out  of 
his  literary  seclusion  to  superintend  in  the  same  way  the 
production  of  'Mademoiselle  Aisse.''  On  the  other  hand, 
Louis  Bouilhet  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  one  person  who 
could  repress  Flauberfs  literary  extravagances,  and  who  did 
so ;  he  was  the  one  critic  whose  censures  and  corrections 
Flaubert  accepted  without  subsecjuent  resentment.  He  often 
fought  against  them  at  the  time,  raved,  howled,  entreated, 

238 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  239 

implored,  but  Bouilhet  was  immovable ;  and  when  Flaubert 
had  once  submitted  to  him,  he  kept  faith. 

The  following  touching  sentence  in  a  letter  written  to 
Jules  Duplan  just  after  Bouilhet's  death,  and  whose  sub- 
stance is  often  repeated  in  the  correspondence,  sufficiently 
indicates  the  strength  and  the  nature  of  the  union  between 
these  two  men  : — 

'  Your  poor  giant  has  suffered  a  rude  buffet,  from  which  he 
will  not  recover.  I  say  to  myself,  '  Why  write  now,  since  he  is 
no  longer  there  ? '  It  is  all  over  :  those  good  bouts  of  howling 
verses,  the  enthusiasms  in  common,  the  future  works  dreamed 
of  together.  One  should  be  "philosophical  and  a  man  of  in- 
tellect" ;  but  it  is  not  easy.' 

As  usual  on  the  death  of  an  intimate  friend,  Flaubert 
wrote  to  Maxime  Ducamp ;  one  passage  in  the  letter  re- 
minds us  again  of  the  grotesque,  which  ever  waited  on 
Flaubert : — 

'  From  Paris  to  Rouen  in  a  carriage  full  of  people.  I  had 
opposite  me  a  damsel  who  smoked  cigarettes,  stretched  her  feet 
on  the  seat,  and  sang.  On  seeing  the  steeples  of  Mantes  again 
(where  Bouilhet  had  lived  for  some  time)  I  thought  I  was  going 
mad,  and  I  am  sure  I  was  not  far  from  it.  Seeing  me  very  pale, 
the  young  lady  offered  me  eau-de-Cologne.  That  revived  me, 
but  what  a  thirst !  That  in  the  desert  of  Qoseir  was  nothing 
in  comparison.' 

Maxime  Ducamp  in  his  Literary  Reminiscences  somewhat 
disparages  the  friendship  between  Flaubert  and  Bouilhet, 
suggests  that  the  friends  injured  one  another  by  their  mutual 
admiration ;  each  would  have  done  more  had  it  not  been  for 
the  friend,  and  so  forth ;  this  too  at  the  same  time  that  he 
praises  the  rigour  with  which  Bouilhet  lopped  off  Flaubert's 
excrescences.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  in  such  cases  the 
exact  nature  of  the  influence  exercised  by  a  pair  of  friends 
upon  one  another ;  for  this  influence  is  certainly  not  limited 


240  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

to  mutual  criticism ;  there  is  also  the  stimulus  of  the  wish 
to  please  the  friend,  to  justify  his  affection  by  adequate 
performance.  Bouilhet,  though  bold  enough  with  his  pen, 
was  deficient  in  self-assurance,  easily  disconcerted  by  pub- 
lishers and  theatrical  managers ;  Flaubert  found  courage  for 
him ;  pushed  him  where  he  would  not  push  himself;  eventu- 
ally secured  his  election  as  librarian  at  Rouen,  in  the  hope 
that  financial  ease  might  give  him  a  fair  opportunity  of  put- 
ting forth  all  his  power.  Unfortunately  the  well-meant  gift 
came  too  late  :  the  poet  was  already  stricken  with  the  ener- 
vating malady  which  killed  him.  Of  the  intimate  nature  of 
the  friendship  between  the  two  men,  the  depth  of  their  affec- 
tion for  one  another,  there  is  abundant  evidence  ;  Flauberfs 
few  published  letters  to  Bouilhet  are  written  with  a  spon- 
taneity which  distinguishes  them  even  in  his  unreserved  cor- 
respondence. There  is  a  certainty  of  comprehension  in  them 
which  there  is  not  always  m  his  letters.  Outwardly,  in  spite 
of  the  great  difference  in  manner — Flaubert  noisy,  impetuous, 
Bouilhet  shrinking,  reserved, — there  was  a  strong  personal 
resemblance  between  the  friends ;  they  were  frequently  taken 
for  brothers. 

It  is  further  more  difficult  for  an  Englishman  than  a 
Frenchman  to  estimate  Flauberfs  literary  influence  upon 
Bouilhet,  for  Bouilhet  wrote  nothing  but  verse,  and  the 
mystery  of  the  melody  of  French  poetry  is  to  Englishmen  a 
sealed  book  ;  few  Englishmen  can  even  hear  the  distinctions 
between  French  vowel-sounds,  and  it  is  in  their  skilful  com- 
bination that  the  merit  of  a  French  poem  is  said  to  consist. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  Maxime  Ducamp's  praise  of 
Bouilhefs  rigid  censure  of  the  superabundant  in  Flaubert, 
it  was  not  till  after  the  death  of  Bouilhet  that  the  three  short 
stories  were  written  in  which  this  particular  defect  is  absent, 
while  the  Education  Sentimentule  in  which  Ducamp  deplores 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  241 

the  absence  of  Bouilhefs  control  was  written  during  his  hfe- 
time  and  published  immediately  after  his  death ;  it  must 
have  enjoyed  considerable  revision  by  him. 

The  conclusion  of  Flauberfs  preface  to  Bouilhefs  post- 
humous volume  of  poems  shows  what  Flaubert  believed  to 
be  his  friend's  artistic  position ;  one  is  inclined  to  suspect 
that  it  is  to  some  extent  also  a  position  which  Flaubert 
made  for  him  : — 

'  He  thought  that  Art  is  a  serious  thing,  whose  aim  is  to  pro- 
duce a  vague  exaltation,  and  even  that  all  its  morality  lies  in  that. 
I  extract  from  a  note-book  the  three  following  passages  : 

' "  In  poetry  the  question  whether  the  morals  are  virtuous 
should  not  be  considered,  but  whether  they  are  in  accordance 
with  those  of  the  person  represented.  Accordingly  poetry  de- 
scribes good  and  bad  actions  for  us  indifferently,  without  offering 
the  latter  to  us  as  an  example." — Pierre  Cornehxe. 

' "  Art  should  only  think  in  her  creations  of  those  faculties 
which  really  have  the  right  to  judge  her.  If  she  does  other- 
wise, she  walks  in  a  wrong  road." — Goethe. 

' "  All  the  intellectual  beauties  that  are  to  be  discovered  in  a 
fine  style,  all  the  complex  relations  which  form  it,  are  so  many 
truths  as  useful  to  the  public  intelligence  as  those  which  form 
the  essence  of  the  subject,and  perhaps  more  valuable." — Buffon. 

'  Thus  Art  having  her  own  end  in  herself  should  not  be  con- 
sidered as  a  means.  In  spite  of  all  the  genius  that  could  be  put 
into  the  development  of  one  story,  another  might  serve  to  prove 
the  contrary ;  for  the  ends  of  plots  are  not  conclusions ;  from  a 
particular  case  general  deductions  cannot  be  made :  and  those 
who  think  themselves  in  that  matter  progressive,  run  counter  to 
modern  science,  which  demands  the  accumulation  of  a  number 
of  facts  before  a  law  is  established. 

'Accordingly  Bouilhet  gave  a  wide  berth  to  that  preaching 
form  of  Art  which  claims  to  instruct,  correct,  make  moral.  He 
thought  still  less  of  the  toy-shop  Art,  which  aims  at  amusing, 
like  a  game  of  cards,  or  causing  emotion  like  an  assize  court ;  and 
he  did  not  use  the  democratic  Art,  being  convinced  that  its  form, 
to  be  accessible  to  all,  would  have  to  descend  very  low,  and 

Q 


242  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

that  in  civilised  ages  one  becomes  silly  when  one  tries  to  be 
simple.  As  for  official  Art,  he  rejected  its  advantages,  because 
he  would  have  been  obliged  to  defend  causes  which  are  not 
eternal. 

'Shunning  paradox,  morbid  conditions,  curiosities,  all  the 
short  paths,  he  took  the  high  road,  that  is  to  say  the  ordinary 
sentiments,  the  unchangeable  sides  of  the  human  soul.  And  as 
"  ideas  form  the  essence  of  style,"  he  tried  to  think  clearly,  in 
order  to  write  well.     Never  did  he  say  : 

'  "  The  play  is  a  good  one,  if  Sal  has  shed  tears," 

he  who  wrote  plays  that  moved  to  weeping,  for  he  did  not 
believe  that  emotion  can  take  the  place  of  artistic  method. 

'  He  hated  the  modern  maxim  that  "  one  should  write  as  one 
speaks."  In  fact,  the  care  given  to  a  work,  the  long  research, 
the  time,  the  trouble,  all  that  was  formerly  a  recommendation, 
has  now  become  a  laughing-stock,  so  superior  are  we  to  all  that 
kind  of  thing,  so  overflowing  with  genius  and  facility. 

^  Not  that  he  was  wanting  in  this  respect :  his  actors  have 
seen  him  make  considerable  corrections  in  their  very  midst. 
"Inspiration,"  he  would  say,  "should  be  invited,  not  sub- 
mitted to." 

'  Plastic  being  the  first  quality  of  Art,  he  gave  his  conceptions 
the  strongest  possible  relief,  following  that  same  Buffon,  who 
recommends  that  each  idea  should  be  expressed  by  an  image. 
But  middle-class  people  are  of  opinion,  so  spiritual  are  they,  that 
colour  is  too  material  a  thing  to  express  sentiment,  and  their 
French  common  sense,  so  comfortable  on  its  peaceful  hobby,  is 
afraid  of  being  carried  off  to  the  skies,  and  cries  every  moment : 
"  Too  many  metaphors  !  "  as  if  it  had  a  stock  of  them  for  sale. 

'  Few  authors  have  taken  such  care  in  the  choice  of  words, 
the  variety  of  periods,  transitions, — and  he  never  conceded  the 
title  of  writer  to  one  who  possesses  only  certain  parts  of  style. 
How  many  of  those  most  highly  extolled  would  be  incapable  of 
constructing  a  narrative,  joining  end  to  end  in  an  analysis,  a 
portrait,  a  dialogue  ! 

'  He  intoxicated  himself  with  the  rhythm  of  verses,  the  cad- 
ence of  prose,  which  should,  like  verse,  be  able  to  be  read  aloud. 
Badly  written  phrases  cannot  stand  this  test ;  they  weigh  on  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  243 

chest,  disturb  the  action  of  the  heart,  and  are  thus  outside  the 
conditions  of  healthy  hfe. 

'  His  Hberahty  of  view  made  him  admit  all  schools ;  Shake- 
speare and  Boileau  elbowed  one  onother  on  his  table. 

'  Of  the  Greeks  he  preferred  first  the  Odyssey,  then  Aristo- 
phanes the  immense,  and  among  the  Latins,  not  the  authors  of 
the  Augustan  era  (except  Virgil),  but  the  others,  who  have  some- 
what more  stiffness,  sonority,  as  Tacitus  and  Juvenal.  He  had 
studied  Apuleius  deeply. 

'He  used  to  read  Rabelais  continually,  liked  Corneille  and 
Lafontaine  :  nor  did  his  romanticism  prevent  him  from  extolling 
Voltaire. 

'  But  he  hated  Academy  speeches,  apostrophes  to  God,  advice 
to  the  people,  what  smells  of  the  sewer,  what  stinks  of  vanilla, 
the  poetry  of  the  pot-house,  and  dandified  literature,  the  ponti- 
fical style,  and  the  style  of  the  shirt-maker. 

'  Many  refinements  were  completely  foreign  to  him,  such  as  the 
idolatry  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  admiration  of  the  style 
of  Calvin,  the  unceasing  lamentation  over  the  decadence  of  the 
Arts,  He  had  very  little  respect  for  M.  de  Maistre.  He  was 
not  dazzled  by  Proudhon. 

'  According  to  him,  sober  minds  were  merely  poor  minds  ;  and 
he  abominated  that  sham  good  taste  which  is  more  execrable 
than  bad,  discussions  upon  the  beautiful,  the  cackle  of  criticism. 
He  would  have  been  hung  rather  than  write  a  preface.  Here  is 
something  which  will  say  all  this  at  greater  length  :  it  is  a  page 
of  a  scribbling  book  entitled  "  Notes  and  Plans  " — plans  ! 

'  "  The  present  century  is  essentially  paedagogic.  There  is  not 
a  scribbler  who  does  not  reel  off  his  harangue,  no  book,  however 
feeble,  which  does  not  hoist  itself  into  a  pulpit !  As  to  form,  it 
is  proscribed.  If  you  have  the  fortune  to  write  well,  you  are 
accused  of  wanting  ideas.  Wanting  ideas  !  Good  God  !  One 
must  be  fool  enough,  indeed,  to  do  without  them  considering 
the  price  they  cost.  The  recipe  is  simple  ;  with  two  or  three 
words  :  future,  progress,  society,  you  are  a  poet,  were  you  Topi- 
nambo  himself !  A  comfortable  labour  which  encourages  fools, 
and  consoles  the  envious.  O  stinking  mediocrity  !  Utilitarian 
poetry  !  Usher's  literature  !  Esthetic  gabblings,  economical 
eructations,  scrofulous  productions  of  an  exhausted  race,  I  hate 


244  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

you  with  all  the  power  of  my  soul.  You  are  not  gangrene,  you 
are  atrophy  !  You  are  not  the  red  warm  inflammation  of  the 
periods  of  fever,  but  the  chill  abscess  with  its  pale  edges, 
which  comes  down  like  a  spring  from  some  depth  of  internal 
rottenness  ! " 

'  The  day  after  his  death  Theophile  Gauthier  wrote :  "  He 
carried  high  the  old  banner,  torn  in  so  many  conflicts ;  we  may 
wrap  ourselves  in  it,  as  in  a  shroud.  The  brave  band  of  Her- 
nani  is  no  more."  That  is  true.  His  was  an  existence  entirely 
devoted  to  the  ideal,  one  of  those  rare  henchmen  of  literature 
for  literature's  sake,  the  last  fanatics  of  a  religion  near  its  extin- 
tion — or  extinct. 

'"A  genius  of  the  second  order,"  some  will  say.  But  those 
of  the  fourth  are  not  now  so  very  common.  Look  how  the 
desert  widens  !  a  wind  of  inanity,  a  waterspout  of  vulgarity, 
envelops  us,  ready  to  cover  up  every  height,  every  elegance. 
People  feel  happy  now  in  not  respecting  great  men  ;  and  maybe 
we  are  on  the  point  of  losing,  along  with  the  literary  tradition, 
that  indefinable  aerial  something  which  used  to  put  into  life 
itself  something  higher  than  life.  To  create  lasting  works  one 
should  not  laugh  at  glory.  A  little  wit  is  gained  by  the  culti- 
vation of  imagination,  and  much  nobility  by  the  contemplation 
of  fine  things.' 

Such  was  Flauberfs  conception  of  Bouilhefs  literary 
ideal;  or  is  he  only  putting  his  own  views  in  the  mouth 
of  his  dead  friend  "^  Unquestionably  the  friends  thought 
alike,  and  it  was  their  loudly  proclaimed  doctrine  of  '  Art 
for  Arfs  sake '  which  was  so  annoying  to  serious-minded 
persons  like  Maxime  Ducamp. 

This  doctrine,  like  every  other  dogma,  must  be  studied 
rather  with  a  view  to  what  it  contradicts  than  to  what  it 
affirms.  There  are  people  who  seriously  maintain  that 
'  novels  with  a  purpose  '  are  superior  to  all  other  romances. 
Mr.  Walter  Besant's  later  books  are  therefore  superior  to 
the  Waverley  Novels  ;  and  on  what  a  sublime  throne  is 
elevated  Madame  Sarah  Grand  with  her  Heavenly  Twins  ! 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  245 

Roughly  speaking,  literary  men  are  divided  into  two  not 
necessarily  conflicting  schools ;  there  is  the  school  of  matter 
and  the  school  of  form.  Of  these  schools  the  Teutonic 
genius  inclines  to  the  first,  the  Latin  to  the  second.  In 
Greek  literature  both  are  found  in  their  completest  expres- 
sion. Latin  and  its  eldest  daughter  Italian  give  us  the 
most  artificial  literary  forms  that  have  been  used.  Compare 
Virgil's  Mneid  with  the  Odyssey,  the  Sonnets  of  Petrarch 
with  Chaucer''s  Passionate  Pilgrim,  the  prose  of  Tacitus 
with  the  prose  of  Plato  ;  in  the  three  Latin  authors  you 
feel  that  the  style  is  everything;  in  the  others  that  it  is 
something,  but  not  everything.  Or,  again,  read  a  play  of 
Shakespeare,  and  afterwards  the  (Edipus  Rex  ;  both  have 
matter,  ideas ;  but  the  wealth  of  the  one  is  as  incomparable 
with  the  other  as  is  the  irregularity  of  the  English  poet 
with  the  stately  forms  of  the  Greek. 

Perfection  lies  in  having  something  to  say,  and  in  saying 
it^in-the  best  possible  manner  ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  great  pleasure  may  be  derived  from  works  in  which 
much  is  said  badly,  and  also  from  those  in  which  a  little  is 
said  weU.  There  are  times  when,  and  places  where,  the 
pendulum  of  taste  swings  unduly  in  one  direction  or  the 
other.  On  the  whole,  the  French  tendency  is  towards  form, 
the  English  tendency  towards  matter ;  yet  England  has 
produced  Milton,  and  France  Rabelais. 

The  other  question,  as  to  whether  the  artist  should  be  a 
preacher  or  no,  is  one  of  extreme  difficulty.  To  deny  that 
moral  beauty  is  a  fit  subject  for  art  is  absurd ;  and  it  is 
equally  ridiculous  to  declare  a  work  of  art  immoral  which 
does  not  obviously  teach  a  lesson.  In  his  paradoxical  moods 
Flaubert  would  assert  that  an  effective  description  of  a 
sunset  was  essentially  no  more  beautiful  than  the  description 
of  a  disembowelled  ox.     The  artistic  power  of  reproducing 


246  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

the  sensations  with  which  the  one  or  the  other  is  contem- 
plated being  the  achievement.  We  are  disposed  to  quarrel 
with  him  when  he  makes  this  assertion  ;  and  yet  we  willingly 
admit  that  the  power  of  portraying  moral  hideousness  is  as 
high  an  artistic  accomplishment  as  that  of  depicting  moral 
beauty. 

The  province  of  literature  is  not  settled  by  argumenta- 
tion ;  the  question  to  be  scientifically  decided  is  not  what 
should  he  the  aim  of  literature,  but  what  does  literature 
actually  effect  ?  A  very  small  literary  experience  is  enough 
to  show  that  in  the  art  of  letters,  as  in  all  other  arts,  there 
are  always  a  few  technical  proficients  possessing  the  highest 
possible  skill  in  the  manipulation  of  material,  in  the  choice 
of  words,  the  laying  on  of  colour,  the  grip  of  the  bow 
upon  the  string,  whose  performance  raises  and  maintains  the 
standard  of  the  mass,  and  whose  methods,  falling  at  rare 
intervals  into  the  hands  of  the  man  of  genius,  give  us  the 
imperishable  works. 

For  artistic  conscience  will  not  of  itself  alone  give  birth  to 
the  completest  works  of  art,  though  without  it  there  can  be 
no  art.  Flaubert  himself  has  said  that  the  most  perfect 
technical  performance  is  not  to  be  looked  for  in  the  giants, 
in  the  Shakespeares,  but  in  the  men  of  the  second  rank,  in 
the  Molieres.  To  a  few  men  the  intelligent  contemplation 
of  perfect  artistic  performance  is  in  the  highest  degree 
chastening  and  salutary,  to  them,  as  to  Flaubert,  there  exists 
neither  purity  nor  impurity  in  art ;  your  true  book  cannot 
be  impure.  But  there  are  two  difficulties  which  always 
beset  the  question  of  the  artist's  morality  :  one  is  the  fact 
that  the  mass  do  not  appreciate  works  of  art  Avith  an  artist's 
eyes  ;  in  looking  at  a  picture  they  do  not  look  only  for 
beauty,  they  look  for  a  stoiy,  a  suggestion,  the  wakening  of 
a  reminiscence ;  they  prefer  Frith's  '  Derby  Day '  or  Luke 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  247 

Fildes'  'Rustic  Wedding"'  to  the  'Madonna  di  San  Sisto,'  Land- 
seer  to  Alma  Tadema  ;  and  another  fact  is  that,  books  being 
scattered  broadcast,  a  perfectly  artistic  presentment  of  de- 
bauchery despised  by  the  author  may  prove  over-attractive 
to  the  imagination  of  the  inexperienced  reader.  The  passions 
are  capable  of  being  stimulated  (sometimes  unhealthily)  by 
literature  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  statement  that 
'  Art  has  no  morality '  shocks  most  of  us.  Flaubert  would 
say  that  the  unhealthy  stimulus  is  unhealthy  because  the 
presentment  of  the  facts  is  incomplete  ;  and  would  further 
urge  against  the  preaching  books,  that  they  are  seriously 
demoralising,  because  they  misrepresent  the  facts  of  life  ; 
that  optimistic  literature  encourages  tendencies  which  are 
inherently  unsoimd  ;  in  the  long-run  even  dangerous  to  the 
wellbeing  of  society.  His  protest  is  not  unneeded  ;  espe- 
cially in  our  own  country,  where  the  tendency-literature  is 
paramount,  and  where  its  attractions  have  spoiled  many  a 
good  artist ;  if  Carlyle  had  been  content  to  be  a  humourist, 
Dickens  forborne  to  meddle  with  social  reforms,  Thackeray 
abstained  from  moralising,  Kingsley  not  been  a  clergyman, 
George  Eliot  forgotten  to  philosophise  !  England,  however, 
can  certainly  boast  of  having  produced  one  prose  author 
who  has  religiously  followed  Flaubert"'s  canons  of  art  with 
complete  success.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson''s  New  Arabian 
Nights  are  irresistible,  and  their  attraction  is  so  obviously 
independent  of  their  subject-matter  that  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  never  was  the  story-telling  art,  as  an  art,  carried 
to  higher  perfection. 

One  other  aspect  of  '  Art  for  Art's  sake '  deserves  a 
moment's  attention,  and  that  is  its  commercial  aspect ; 
naturally  neither  Flaubert  nor  Bouilhet  would  hear  of 
writing  with  one  eye  on  the  financial  profits  of  the  work ; 
and  in  this  relation  Flaubert   made   a  profound   remark : 


248  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Works  that  are  written  for  all  time  cannot  expect  to  be 
paid  for  by  the  generation  which  happens  to  be  living  when 
they  come  into  existence."'  Those  works  are  most  likely  to 
be  highly  paid  for  by  the  current  generation,  which  hit  its 
purely  ephemeral  conditions. 

Even  a  sharp  contrast  with  the  prevailing  fashion  may 
give  a  book  a  wholly  undeserved  and  short-lived  popularity ; 
and  its  author  will  be  proportionately  overpaid.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  are  works  deliberately  written  with  a  view 
to  contemporary  events  which  prove  to  be  immortal  owing  to 
the  surpassing  merit  of  their  style.  Will  Gulliver's  Travels 
ever  cease  to  be  read  ?  or  the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes  ? 

Flaubert''s  friends  did  not  like  being  told  that  they  had  no 
business  to  think  of  the  pecuniary  profits  of  literature,  and 
sometimes  unkindly  suggested  that  he  could  afford  to  talk  in 
this  way,  being  in  the  fortunate  enjoyment  of  an  independent 
fortune;  but  the  doctrine  was  equally  loudly  upheld  by 
Bouilhet,  who  had  nothing. 

On  the  whole,  Flaubert's  dogma  was  a  healthy  one ;  it 
could  be  misapplied,  and  has  in  more  than  one  instance  been 
abused ;  but  it  impelled  the  young  men  to  take  pains,  and 
mistrust  the  success  of  the  feuilleton. 

On  the  day  of  Louis  Bouilhet's  funeral  a  movement  was 
started  to  raise  a  fund  in  order  to  establish  some  permanent 
memorial  of  the  poet  in  Rouen.  In  a  very  short  time  over 
six  hundred  pounds  was  subscribed,  and  an  application  was 
made  to  the  Municipal  Council  of  Rouen  for  leave  to  erect 
in  some  public  place  a  fountain  ornamented  with  the  poet's 
bust.  For  some  inscrutable  reason  the  Councillors  rejected 
the  gift,  and  Flaubert  then  addressed  a  letter  to  them, 
which  was  published  in  the  papers,  to  the  horror  of  the 
gentle  Ducamp,  and  probably  many  other  quiet  folk.  With 
slashing  logic  the  enraged  Flaubert  demolished  the  alleged 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  249 

reasons  given  by  the  Town  Council  for  their  action,  held  up 
to  ridicule  the  verses  of  one  of  their  number  who  had  been 
so  ill  advised  as  to  communicate  doggerel  rhymes  to  the 
Rouen  Academy,  of  which  he  was  a  member,  and  concluded 
with  an  address  to  middle-class  people  in  general,  which  is 
well  worth  studying  and  taking  to  heart.  It  was  written 
after  the  Franco-Prussian  war. 

'  This  affair  in  itself  is  a  very  small  matter.  But  one  can  note 
it  as  a  sign  of  the  times — as  a  trait  characteristic  of  your  class  ; 
and  it  is  no  longer  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  I  address  myself, 
but  to  all  middle-class  folk.     Then  I  say  to  them : 

' "  Ye  conservatives  who  preserve  nothing,"  it  is  high  time 
to  tread  in  another  path — and  since  the  talk  is  of  i-egeneration, 
of  decentralisation,  change  your  habits  of  mind  !  Do  at  last 
have  some  initiative  ! 

'  The  French  nobility  came  to  grief  through  having  had  the 
sentiments  of  a  flunkeydom  for  two  centuries.  The  end  of  the 
middle-class  is  coming,  because  it  has  those  of  the  people.  1 
do  not  see  that  it  reads  other  newspapers,  that  it  treats  itseh 
to  other  music,  that  it  has  more  elevated  pleasures.  With 
the  one  as  with  the  other  there  is  the  same  love  of  money,  the 
same  respect  for  the  accomplished  fact,  the  same  need  of  idols 
to  destroy,  the  same  hatred  of  all  superiority,  the  same  crass 
ignorance ! 

'  There  are  seven  hundred  of  you  in  the  National  Assembly. 
How  many  of  those  are  there  who  can  tell  the  names  of  the 
principal  treaties  in  our  history,  or  the  dates  of  six  kings  of 
France .''  who  know  the  first  elements  of  political  economy  ? 
who  have  read  even  Bastiat  ?  The  Municipality  of  Rouen, 
which  has  denied  as  a  body  the  merit  of  a  poet,  is  possibly 
ignorant  of  the  rules  of  versification.  And  it  has  no  need  to 
know  them,  so  long  as  it  does  not  meddle  with  verses. 

'  To  be  respected  by  what  is  below  you,  please  to  respect 
what  is  above  you  ! 

'  Before  sending  the  people  to  school,  go  there  yourselves ! 

'  Enlightened  classes,  seek  enlightenment.  Because  of  this 
contempt  for  intelligence  you  think   yourselves   full    of  good 


250  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

sense,  positive,  practical !  But  one  is  only  really  practical  on 
condition  of  being  a  little  more  so.  .  ,  .  You  would  not  be 
enjoying  all  the  benefits  of  commerce  if  your  fathers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  had  had  no  ideal  except  that  of  material 
utility.  Germany  has  been  sufficiently  joked,  I  presume,  on  the 
subject  of  her  theorisers,  her  dreamers,  her  misty  poets!  You 
have  seen,  alas !  where  her  mists  have  brought  her !  Your 
milliards  have  paid  her  for  all  the  time  that  she  had  not  wasted 
in  constructing  systems.  I  have  an  idea  that  the  dreamer 
Fichte  re-organised  the  Prussian  army  after  Jena,  and  that  the 
poet  Koerner  sent  some  Uhlans  against  us  about  the  year  1813. 

'  You,  practical  !  Come  now  !  You  do  not  know  how  to 
hold  either  a  pen  or  a  rifle  !  You  allow  yourselves  to  be 
robbed,  imprisoned,  murdered  by  mere  criminals  !  You  have 
not  even  the  brute  instinct  of  self-defence,  and  when  the  ques- 
tion is  not  mei'ely  of  your  skins,  but  of  your  purse,  which 
should  be  dearer  to  you,  energy  fails  you  to  go  and  put  a 
bit  of  paper  in  a  box !  With  all  your  capital  and  all  your 
sober  sense,  you  cannot  form  an  association  equal  to  the 
International  ! 

'  Your  whole  intellectual  effoi't  consists  in  trembling  before 
the  future. 

'  Bethink  yourselves  of  something  else.  Rouse  yourselves,  or 
France  will  soon  sink  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  gulf,  between 
a  hideous  demagogy  and  a  mindless  middle-class.' 

Can  this  be  that  same  French  middle-class  that  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold  was  wont  to  hold  up  to  Englishmen  as  a 
brilliant  example  ? 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  '  EDUCATION  SENTIMENTALE  ^ THE  FRANCO-PRUSSIAN  WAR 

LETTERS  TO  GEORGE  SAND DEATH  OF  HIS  MOTHER 

The  Education  Senthnentale  had  the  misfortune  to  be  pub- 
lished just  when  the  great  war  was  impending;  other  things 
were  more  in  the  minds  of  men  than  the  last  novel.  Worse 
than  that,  many  of  the  characters  were  recognisable  under 
their  disguises ;  there  was  a  silent,  unconscious  conspiracy  to 
let  the  book  drop  unnoticed,  if  possible ;  and  the  book  was 
dropped. 

It  is,  however,  not  improbable  that  of  contemporary 
novels  this  one  will  have  the  longest  life,  but  not  on  its 
merits  as  a  romance :  it  will  always  be  deeply  interesting  to 
the  historical  student.  In  spite  of  his  professed  contempt 
for  the  popular  judgment,  Flaubert  was  hurt,  amazed,  un- 
settled by  the  cold  reception  given  to  his  work.  He  writes 
to  George  Sand  : — 

'Your  old  troubadour  is  mightily  blackened  by  the  press. 
Read  the  Constitutionnel  of  last  Monday,  the  Gaulois  of  this 
morning;  that's  square  and  clear.  I  am  treated  as  an  idiot 
and  a  rascal.  The  article  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  is  a  model  in 
this  style,  and  that  of  the  good  Sarcey,  although  less  violent, 
is  not  an  inch  behind  him.  These  gentlemen  protest  in  the 
name  of  morality  and  the  Ideal.  I  have  also  had  some  gashes 
in  the  Figaro  and  in  Paris  by  Cesena  and  Duranty.  I  don't 
care  a  snap !  That,  however,  does  not  prevent  my  being 
astounded  at  so  much  hatred  and  falseness.     The  Tribune,  the 

251 


252  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Pays,  and  the  Opinion  Nationale  have  in  compensation  highly 
extolled  me.  As  for  the  friends,  the  persons,  who  have  received 
a  copy  ornamented  with  my  fist,  they  are  afraid  of  compromis- 
ing themselves,  and  speak  to  me  of  something  else.  The  honest 
fellows  are  scarce.  None  the  less,  the  book  sells  well  in  spite 
of  politics,  and  Levy  seems  to  me  satisfied. 

'  I  know  that  the  good  folk  of  Rouen  are  furious  with  me, 
because  of  old  Roque  and  the  cancan  in  the  Tuileries.  They 
think  that  the  publication  of  books  like  that  ought  to  be  pre- 
vented (textual),  that  I  lend  a  hand  to  the  Reds,  that  I  am 
even  capable  of  stirring  the  fire  of  revolutionary  passions,  etc. 
etc.  In  short,  up  to  the  present  I  gather  but  few  laurels,  and 
no  rose-leaf  wounds  me. 

'  Sarcey  has  published  a  second  article  against  me. 

'  Barbey  d' Aurevilly  will  have  it  that  I  defile  the  stream  by 
washing  in  it  (sic).' 

A  year  or  two  later  Flaubert  used  to  protest  that  the 
horrors  of  1870,  and  the  political  chaos  that  followed,  might 
have  been  averted  had  the  French  people  read  and  under- 
stood his  Education  Sentimentale ;  and  he  was  right.  But  a 
book  that  requires  to  be  understood  in  the  way  that  this 
book  requires  understanding,  is  not  a  book  that  can  be  read 
by  many.  The  book  is,  in  fact,  an  elaborate  analysis  of 
Parisian  upper  and  lower  middle-class  society  in  the  middle 
of  the  century ;  a  historical  study,  not  a  romance ;  the  ideas 
prevalent  at  the  period  are  personified,  and  in  not  a  few 
cases  real  persons  thinly  disguised  represent  the  ideas.  The 
individual  through  Avhom  we  see  them  all,  the  hero  of  the 
romance,  is  probably  in  himself  one  of  the  least  interesting 
figures  in  fiction.  Arthur  Pendennis  is  vapid  enough,  but 
Frederic  Moreau  is  of  a  hundred  Arthur  Pendennis  power. 
A  man  devoid  of  vice  and  virtue,  unstable,  heartless,  whose 
chief  impelling  motive  of  action  of  any  sort  is  a  feeble 
flickering  vanity,  helped  on  occasionally  by  an  equally  feeble 
lustfulness,  he  stands  out,  even  in  the  confraternity  of  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  253 

weak-kneed  heroes  of  feminine  fiction,  as  the  most  tiresome 
of  male  human  beings.  And  yet  how  appalHngly  true  he 
is !  As  well  known  in  Hyde  Park  as  on  the  Boulevards,  in 
the  Temple  as  in  the  Quartier  Latin.  Equally  well  drawn 
are  a  lady  of  worse  than  doubtful  reputation,  a  rascally 
middle-class  dealer  of  the  type  whose  matrimonial  infelicities 
have  now  expelled  those  of  the  aristocracy  from  the  London 
Divorce  Courts,  a  banker  who  is  a  politician,  and  one 
Deslauriers,  the  friend  of  Frederic's  youth,  one  of  those  men 
'  who  are  never  so  pleased  as  when  they  are  urging  their 
friends  to  do  what  they  do  not  like.' 

Of  action  there  is  plenty,  including  all  the  street-fighting 
of  1848,  of  plot  next  to  none,  development  of  character 
almost  as  little.  Still,  the  book  is  worth  reading,  and  re- 
reading ;  but  it  will  never  carry  the  votes  of  the  comfortable 
middle-class  folk,  who  believe  themselves  to  live  in  the  best 
of  all  possible  worlds,  and  only  ask  of  fate  to  be  allowed  to 
cultivate  their  gardens  peaceably  in  the  intervals  of  irre- 
sponsible gossip. 

The  almost  absolute  exclusion  from  this  book  of  real  tender- 
ness of  heart  is  particularly  striking.  Of  all  men,  Flaubert 
must  have  known  that  disinterested  affection  is  not  an  uncom- 
mon motive  influencing  the  actions  of  the  most  unlikely 
people.  No  man  did  more  for  his  friends,  no  man  did  more  for 
his  family ;  there  never  was  a  man  so  well  loved,  or  who  loved 
so  well ;  and  yet  in  a  very  full — an  over-full — picture  of 
society  at  a  particular  epoch,  he  deliberately  omits  the  most 
ordinary  affection.  The  friendship  between  the  hero  and 
Deslauriers  is  repeatedly  ridiculed,  and  is  helpful  to  neither. 
The  genuine  gratitude  of  one  Dussardier,  a  young  shopman, 
to  Moreau  and  his  friends  is  slurred  over.  Flaubert's  revolt 
against  optimism  has  been  carried  too  far.  Or  may  it  not 
be  that  men's  ideas  were  more  interesting  to  Flaubert  than 


254  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

their  affections — the  weaknesses  of  their  intellects  a  more 
attractive  subject  than  the  sufferings  of  their  hearts  ?  In 
fact,  the  satirist  had  not  yet  found  his  form.  He  was  still 
fettered  by  the  necessity  of  writing  a  romance,  and  therefore 
could  not  say,  what  was  burning  on  his  lips,  in  the  most 
effective  fashion. 

After  the  publication  of  the  Education  Sentimentale, 
Flaubert  found  some  difficulty  in  setting  to  work  again  ;  he 
missed  Bouilhet  profoundly.     He  writes  to  George  Sand  : — 

*  In  losing  my  poor  Bouilhet  I  have  lost  my  man-midwife ; 
the  man  who  saw  more  clearly  into  my  own  thoughts  than  I 
saw  myself.  His  death  has  left  me  a  void  which  I  perceive 
more  plainly  every  day. 

'  I  no  longer  feel  the  need  to  write,  because  I  used  to  write 
specially  for  one  single  being  who  is  no  more.  That  is  the 
truth  !  And  yet  I  shall  continue  to  write.  But  the  taste  is  no 
longer  there,  the  pre-occupation  is  gone.  There  are  so  few 
people  who  love  what  I  love,  who  concern  themselves  with 
what  I  find  absorbing.  Do  you  know  in  this  Paris,  which  is  so 
great,  one  single  house  in  which  literature  is  talked  about .'' 
And  when  it  is  incidentally  approached,  it  is  always  by  its 
subaltern  and  exterior  sides,  the  question  of  success,  morality, 
utility,  etc.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  am  becoming  a  fossil,  a 
being  without  any  relation  to  the  surrounding  creation.' 

And  again,  writing  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt  on  the  death 
of  his  brother : — 

'  You  wish  me  to  speak  to  you  of  myself,  my  dear  Edmond  ? 
Well,  I  am  giving  myself  up  to  a  work  which  causes  me  great 
pain,  for  I  am  writing  the  preface  to  Bouilhet's  volume.  I  have 
passed  as  lightly  as  possible  over  the  biographical  part.  I  shall 
expand  more  on  his  (or  our)  literary  doctrines. 

'  I  have  re-read  all  that  he  has  written.  I  have  turned  over 
our  old  letters.  I  have  stirred  a  series  of  reminiscences,  some 
of  which  are  thirty-seven  years  old  !  It  is  not  a  very  gay  busi- 
ness, as  you  see.     Besides,  here  at  Croisset  I  am  pursued  by  his 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  255 

phantom,  which  I  find  behmd  every  bush  in  the  garden,  on  the 
sofa  in  my  study,  and  even  in  my  clothes,  my  dressing-gowns 
which  he  used  to  wear.' 

Eventually  he  settled  down  to  re-write  the  St.  Anthony^ 
which  has  been  already  described ;  he  had  barely  got  to 
work  when  the  great  war  broke  out. 

For  this  period  of  Flauberfs  life  the  fullest  illustration  is 
given  by  his  correspondence  with  George  Sand.  He  had 
begun  to  write  to  her  in  1866,  but  the  letters  did  not  become 
very  frequent  till  two  years  later ;  after  the  death  of  Bouilhet 
this  remarkable  woman  became  the  recipient  of  most  of 
Flaubert's  outpourings ;  and  his  letters,  truthfully  reflecting, 
as  they  always  do,  the  nature  of  his  correspondent,  incline 
one  to  think  very  kindly  of  the  author  of  Lelia  and  Spiridion, 
Mr.  Thackeray  notwithstanding. 

Flaubert  was  professedly  not  a  politician ;  nothing  was 
more  distasteful  to  him  than  the  thoughtless  chatter,  whether 
inside  or  outside  of  legislative  assemblies,  which  passes  for 
politics.  He  very  nearly  withdrew  from  the  fortnightly 
dinner  of  literary  friends  at  Magny's  restaurant,  because  one 
evening  had  been  wasted  in  political  conversation  ;  none  the 
less,  he  unconsciously  studied  the  history  of  his  own  time 
attentively;  we  have  just  seen  how  he  wrote  a  serious  con- 
tribution to  political  history  under  the  impression  that  he 
was  writing  a  romance.  The  events  of  '70  stirred  him  pro- 
foundly. We,  who  have  never  known  an  invasion,  may  read 
his  letters  at  this  period  with  sympathy  and  profit.  Unless 
it  is  otherwise  indicated,  the  following  letters  were  all 
written  to  George  Sand  : — 

'  What  is  becoming  of  you,  my  dear  master,  of  you  and  yours  ? 
For  my  part,  I  am  disheartened,  utterly  cast  down,  by  the  inane 
stupidity  of  my  fellow-countrymen.  The  incurable  barbarism 
of  humanity  fills  me  with  a  black  melancholy.    This  enthusiasm, 


256  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

which  has  no  idea  as  its  motive  force,  makes  me  long  to  die,  so 
as  to  behold  it  no  longer.  Our  good  Frenchman  wants  to  fight 
— (1)  because  he  believes  himself  challenged  by  Prussia;  (2) 
because  the  natural  state  of  man  is  savagery ;  (3)  because  war 
contains  in  itself  that  mystic  element  which  transports  the 
masses. 

'  Have  we  got  back  to  the  race  wars  ?  I  fear  it.  The  fright- 
ful butchery  that  is  being  prepared  has  not  even  a  pretext.  It 
is  the  wish  to  fight  for  fighting's  sake. 

'  I  weep  over  the  broken  bridges,  the  ruined  tunnels,  all  this 
human  labour  wasted — in  a  word,  such  a  radical  negative. 

'  The  peace  congress  is  wrong  for  the  moment.  Civilisation 
seems  to  me  a  long  way  off.  Hobbes  was  right :  Homo  homini 
lupus. 

'  I  have  begun  St.  Anthony,  and  that  would  go  well  enough 
did  I  not  think  of  the  war — and  you ! 

'  The  middle-class  man  of  these  parts  no  longer  contains  him- 
self. He  is  of  opinion  that  Prussia  was  too  insolent,  and  wishes 
"  to  revenge  himself"  Did  you  see  that  a  gentleman  in  the 
Chamber  proposed  to  pillage  the  duchy  of  Baden  }  Ah,  why 
can  I  not  live  with  the  Bedouins  } ' 

'  Wed7iesday,  August  3,  1870. 

'  How  now,  dear  master  !  You  too  demoralised — sad  ?  What 
is  then  to  become  of  the  weak  } 

'  My  heart  is  oppressed  in  a  way  which  amazes  myself,  and  I 
wallow  in  a  bottomless  melancholy  in  spite  of  my  work,  in  spite 
of  the  good  St.  Anthony,  who  should  distract  me.  Is  it  the 
consequence  of  my  repeated  sorrows .''  Possibly.  But  the  war 
counts  for  much.     Meseems  we  are  walking  into  blackness. 

'  Here  then  we  have  the  natural  man.  It  is  all  over  with  the 
theories  now  !  Cry  up  progress,  the  enlightenment,  the  good 
sense  of  the  masses,  and  the  gentleness  of  the  French  people  ! 
I  assure  you  that  if  one  took  upon  oneself  to  preach  peace 
here,  one  would  get  one's  head  broken.  Whatever  may  happen, 
we  have  gone  back  for  a  long  time. 

'  Perhaps  the  wars  of  races  are  about  to  begin  again  .-*  Before 
a  hundred  years  are  out  we  shall  see  several  millions  of  men 
massacre  one  another  at  a  sitting.     The  whole  East  against  the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  257 

whole  of  Europe ;  the  old  world  against  the  new  !  Why  not  ? 
Great  united  works  like  the  Suez  Canal  are  perhaps,  under 
another  form,  only  sketches,  preparations  for  those  monstrous 
conflicts  of  which  we  have  at  present  no  idea ! 

'  Perhaps,  too,  Prussia  is  going  to  get  a  smart  slap,  which  was 
part  of  the  designs  of  Providence,  to  re-establish  the  equilibrium 
of  Europe  ?  That  country  was  tending  to  hypertrophy,  like  the 
France  of  Louis  xiv.  and  Napoleon,  The  other  organs  were 
discommoded  by  it.  Hence  general  disturbance.  Formidable 
blood-lettings  may  possibly  be  salutary  ? 

'  Ah,  we  literary  folk  !  Humanity  is  far  from  our  ideal !  and 
our  immense  error,  our  deadly  error,  is  to  think  it  like  us,  and 
to  wish  to  treat  it  accordingly. 

'The  respect,  the  fetish-worship,  that  is  given  to  universal 
suffrage  is  more  revolting  to  me  than  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope  (which,  by  the  way,  has  just  missed  fire  finely).  Do  you 
think  that  if  France,  instead  of  being  governed,  in  the  last 
resort,  by  the  mass,  were  in  the  power  of  Mandarins,  we  should 
be  where  we  are  ?  If,  instead  of  wishing  to  enlighten  the  lower 
classes,  trouble  had  been  taken  to  instruct  the  higher,  you 
would  not  have  seen  M.  de  Keratry  propose  the  pillage  of  the 
duchy  of  Baden,  a  measure  which  the  public  consider  very 
just! 

'  Do  you  study  Prudhomme  at  the  present  epoch  ?  He  is 
gigantic.  He  admires  de  Musset's  Rhine  and  asks  if  de 
Musset  has  written  anything  else.  So  you  see,  de  Musset  has 
become  a  national  poet,  and  is  putting  Beranger's  nose  out  of 
joint.  What  an  immense  farce  everything  is !  But  the  re- 
verse of  a  gay  farce. 

'  Distress  plainly  declares  itself.  Everybody  is  in  difficulties, 
myself  to  begin  with.  But  perhaps  we  had  become  over- 
habituated  to  the  comfortable  and  tranquil.  We  were  founder- 
ing in  material  things.  We  must  return  to  the  great  tradition, 
cease  to  cling  to  life,  happiness,  money,  anything ;  be  what 
our  grandfathers  were — light,  gaseous  personages. 

'  In  other  times  men  spent  their  existence  in  dying  of  hunger. 
The  same  perspective  looms  on  the  horizon.  What  you  tell 
me  about  poor  Nohant  is  abominable.  The  country  here  has 
suffered  less  than  with  you.' 

R 


258  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  I  went  to  Paris  on  Monday  and  came  back  again  on  Wed- 
nesday. Now  I  know  the  Parisian  to  the  very  bottom,  and  in 
my  heart  I  have  excused  the  most  ferocious  politics  of  1793. 
Now  I  understand  them.  What  inanity !  What  ignorance ! 
What  presumption !  My  fellow-countrymen  make  me  long  to 
be  sick.  They  are  fit  to  be  put  in  the  same  bag  as  Isidore 
(Napoleon  iii.)  ! 

'This  people  deserves  to  be  chastised,  and  I  fear  it  may 
be.  .  .  .' 

'  Here  we  are  at  the  bottom  of  the  abyss  !  A  dishonourable 
peace  will  not,  perhaps,  be  accepted.  The  Prussians  wish  to 
destroy  Paris  !     It  is  their  dream. 

'  I  do  not  think  the  siege  of  Paris  is  very  near.  But  to  force 
Paris  to  yield  they  are  going  (1)  to  frighten  her  by  the  appari- 
tion of  cannon  ;  and  (2)  to  ravage  the  surrounding  provinces. 

'  At  Rouen  we  are  expecting  a  visit  from  these  gentlemen, 
and  as  I  am  (since  Sunday)  lieutenant  of  my  company,  I  drill 
my  men,  and  go  to  Rouen  to  take  lessons  in  the  art  of  war. 

'The  deplorable  thing  is  that  opinions  are  divided,  some  being 
for  resistance  to  the  last,  others  for  peace  at  any  price. 

'  I  am  dying  of  vexation.  What  a  house  mine  is  !  Fourteen 
persons  wailing  and  dispiriting  you.  I  curse  women.  It  is 
through  them  that  we  perish. 

'  I  am  expecting  Paris  to  have  to  submit  to  the  fate  of  War- 
saw, and  you  vex  me  with  your  enthusiasm  for  the  Republic. 
At  the  moment  at  which  we  are  conquered  by  the  most  absolute 
positivism,  how  can  you  still  believe  in  phantoms  ?  Whatever 
happens,  the  people,  who  are  now  in  power,  will  be  sacrificed, 
and  the  Republic  will  follow  their  fate.  Observe  that  I  defend 
this  poor  creature  of  a  Republic,  but  I  don't  believe  in  it.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  This  is  the  point  to  which  we  have  been  brought  by  the 
mania  for  refusing  to  see  the  truth  !  By  the  love  of  sham  and 
humbug.  We  are  going  to  become  a  Poland,  then  a  Spain. 
Then  it  will  be  Prussia's  turn,  who  will  be  eaten  up  by  Russia. 

'  As  for  myself,  I  consider  myself  a  man  done  for.  My  brain 
will  not  recover  itself.  One  cannot  write  when  one  has  lost 
one's  self-esteem.  I  only  ask  for  one  thing,  that  is,  to  die 
and  be  quiet.' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  259 

Extract  from  a  letter  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt. 

'  I  have  engaged  myself  as  attendant  at  the  hospital  at  Rouen, 
till  I  go  to  defend  Lutetia,  if  siege  is  laid  to  her  (which  I  don't 
believe).  I  feel  a  longing,  a  prurient  desire  to  fight.  Is  it  the 
re-appearance  of  the  blood  of  my  ancestors,  the  Natchez  ?  No, 
it  is  the  explosion  of  the  beastliness  of  existence.  Happy  are 
those,  whom  we  regret,  my  poor  friend  ! ' 

Writing  to  Claudius  Popelin,  he  says  : — 

'Others  are  not  like  myself  Some  even  support  our  misfor- 
tunes saucily  enough.  There  are  ready-made  phrases,  which  con- 
sole the  masses  for  everything  :  France  will  raise  herself  again  ! 
why  despair  ?  It  is  a  wholesome  chasleiiing  !  etc.  Oh  this  eternal 
humbug ! ' 

On  the  29th  of  September  1870,  in  a  letter  to  Maxima 
Ducamp,  occurs  the  following  passage : — 

'After  bordering  on,  "grazing"  madness  or  suicide,  I  am  now 
completely  recovei*ed.  I  have  bought  a  haversack,  and  am  ready 
for  anything.  I  assure  you  this  all  begins  to  be  very  fine. 
This  evening  there  arrived  at  Croisset  four  hundred  mohiles 
coming  to  us  from  the  Pyrenees.  I  have  two  in  my  house,  not 
counting  two  at  Paris ;  my  mother  has  two  at  Rouen,  Comman- 
ville  five  at  Paris,  and  two  at  Dieppe.  I  spent  my  time  in 
drilling  and  night-patrol.  Since  last  Sunday  I  have  started 
work  again,  and  am  no  longer  sad.  In  the  middle  of  all  this 
there  are,  or  rather  have  been,  scenes  of  an  exquisite  grotesque- 
ness ;  humanity  is  shown  bare  at  such  times.  What  afflicts  me 
is  the  prodigious  inanity  with  which  we  shall  be  overwhelmed 
afterwards. 

'  All  "  gentlenesse,"  as  Montaigne  would  have  said,  is  lost  for  a 
long  while,  a  new  world  will  begin ;  children  will  be  brought 
up  in  the  hatred  of  Prussia  !  Military  ism,  the  most  abject  posi- 
tivism, will  be  our  lot  henceforth! — unless,  the  powder  puri- 
fying the  air,  we  come  out  of  it  all  stronger  and  sounder,  I 
think  we  shall  shortly  be  avenged  by  a  general  upheaval. 
When  Prussia  has  the  ports  of  Holland,  Courland,  and  Trieste, 
England,    Austria,    and     Russia,    will    have    time    to    repent. 


260  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

William  was  wrong  not  to  make  peace  after  Sedan;  our  disgrace 
would  have  been  irredeemable ;  now  we  are  beginning  to 
become  objects  of  interest.  As  for  our  immediate  success,  who 
knows  ?  The  Prussian  army  is  a  marvellous  machine  in  its  pre- 
cision, but  all  machines  get  out  of  gear  unexpectedly;  a  slip 
may  break  a  spring.  Our  enemy  has  science  on  her  side  ;  but 
sentiment,  inspiration,  despair  are  forces  to  be  reckoned  with. 
Victory  should  remain  with  the  right,  and  now  we  are  in  the 
right.  Yes,  you  speak  truly ;  we  are  paying  for  the  long  lie  in 
which  we  have  lived,  for  everything  was  sham  ;  sham  army, 
sham  politics,  sham  literature,  sham  credit,  and  even  sham 
whores.  To  say  the  truth,  it  was  an  immoral  existence.  Per- 
signy  reproached  me  all  last  winter  with  "  wanting  ideal "  ! 
And  perhaps  he  was  in  earnest.  We  are  going  to  make  some 
fine  discoveries ;  it  will  be  a  pretty  story  to  write  I  Ah  !  how 
humbled  I  am  at  having  become  a  savage,  for  my  heart  is  as  dry 
as  a  stone  !  Whereupon  I  am  going  to  re-don  my  costume,  and 
go  and  make  a  little  military  excursion  in  the  forest  of  Canteleu. 
Do  you  think  of  the  number  of  poor  that  we  must  have .''  All 
the  manufactories  are  shut,  and  the  workmen  have  neither  work 
nor  bread  ;  it  will  be  fine  this  winter !  In  spite  of  all  that, — I 
may  be  mad, — something  tells  me  that  we  shall  come  out  of  it 
all.' 

TO    GEORGE  SAND. 

' .  .  .  Explain  this  to  me  !  The  idea  of  making  peace  exas- 
perates me  now,  and  I  would  prefer  to  have  Paris  burnt  like 
Moscow  rather  than  see  the  Prussians  enter.  But  we  are  not  at 
that  point  yet ;  I  think  the  wind  is  turning. 

'  I  have  read  some  soldiers'  letters  which  are  models.  A 
country  in  which  such  things  are  written  is  not  swallowed  up. 
France  is  a  jade  with  stay  in  her,  and  will  get  up  again.' 

Tuesday,  October  llth,  1870. 

'  What  distress  !  I  had  at  my  door  to-day  two  hundred  and 
seventy-one  poor  people,  and  all  were  relieved  !  What  will  it 
be  in  the  winter  ! 

'  The  Prussians  are  now  within  twelve  hours  of  Rouen,  and 
we  have  no  orders,  no  command,  no  discipline,  nothing,  nothing  ! 
We  are  always  put  off  with  the  army  of  the  Loire.     Where  is  it  } 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  261 

Do  you  know  anything  of  it  ?     What  is  happening  in  the  centre 
of  France  ?    .  .  . 

'  I  do  not  beheve  that  a  sadder  man  than  myself  exists  in 
France  !  (Everything  depends  upon  the  degree  of  sensitiveness.) 
I  am  dying  of  vexation.  That  is  the  truth,  and  consolation 
irritates  me.  What  knocks  me  down  is  (1)  human  ferocity,  (2) 
the  conviction  that  we  are  entering  upon  an  era  of  stupidity.  We 
shall  be  utilitarian,  military,  American,  and  Catholic — very 
Catholic !  you  will  see.  The  Prussian  war  ends,  and  destroys 
the  French  Revolution.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  What  a  collapse  !  What  a  fall !  what  distress !  What 
abomination !  Can  one  believe  in  progress  and  civilisation  in 
the  presence  of  all  that  is  happening  ? 

'  What,  pray,  is  the  use  of  science,  since  this  people,  full  of 
scientific  men,  commits  abominations  worthy  of  the  Huns ;  and 
worse  than  theirs,  for  they  are  systematic,  cold,  designed,  and 
are  not  excused  either  by  passion  or  hunger  ! 

'  Why  do  they  hate  us  so  ?  Do  not  you  feel  crushed  by  the 
hatred  of  forty  millions  of  men  ?  That  immense,  infernal  gulf 
makes  me  giddy.'  .   .  . 

TO    MADAME    REGNIER. 

'Dieppe,  March  lllh,  1871. 

* ...  I  was  like  Rachel,  I  "  would  not  be  comforted,"  and  I 
spent  my  nights  seated  on  my  bed,  rattling  like  one  about  to  die. 
I  am  angry  with  my  time  for  having  given  me  the  sentiments 
of  a  twelfth-century  brute.  What  barbarism  !  What  retrogres- 
sion !  And  yet  I  was  scarcely  a  progressive  and  humanitai-ian  ! 
Never  mind,  I  had  my  illusions  !  And  I  did  not  expect  to  see 
the  coming  of  the  e?id  of  the  world.  For  that  is  where  we  are  ; 
we  are  looking  on  at  the  end  of  the  Latin  world.  Farewell 
then  to  all  that  we  love  !  Paganism,  Christianity,  Smuggery. 
Those  are  the  three  great  evolutions  of  humanity.  It  is  not 
pleasant  to  find  one's  self  in  the  last.  Ah — we  are  to  see  fine 
times  !     My  bile  suffocates  me.     That  is  the  upshot  of  it."   .  .  . 

There  is  no  exaggeration  in  this  ;  when  Flaubert  gave 
way  at  this  time  to  his  wrathful  feelings  he  repeatedly  be- 
came literally,  physically  sick. 


262     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

But  the  worst  had  not  come  yet ;  the  Prussian  occupation 
Mas  followed  by  the  Commune. 

Neuville,  near  Dieppe,  March  31,  1871. 

'  Is  it  the  end  of  humbug  ?  Will  one  be  done  with  hollow 
metaphysics  and  accepted  opinions  ?  The  whole  mischief  comes 
from  our  gigantic  ignorance.  What  should  be  studied,  is  believed 
without  discussion.     Instead  of  looking,  people  affirm. 

'  The  French  Revolution  must  cease  to  be  a  dogma  ;  it  must  be 
brought  under  the  kingdom  of  science  like  everything  else 
human.  If  people  had  been  more  scientific  they  would  not 
have  believed  that  a  mystical  formula  is  capable  of  making 
armies,  and  that  the  word  "  Republic  "  is  enough  to  conquer  a 
million  of  disciplined  men.  Badinguet  should  have  been  left  on 
the  throne  expressly  to  make  peace,  with  full  liberty  to  send 
him  to  the  galleys  afterwards.  If  people  had  been  more  learned 
they  would  have  known  what  the  volunteers  of  '92  were,  and 
the  retreat  of  Brunswick  purchased,  money  down,  by  Danton 
and  Westermann.  But  no  !  Always  the  old  string  !  Always 
humbug  !  Now  we  have  the  Paris  Commune,  which  is  returning 
to  pure  Middle  Ages  !  That  is  neat !  The  question  of  rents  in 
particular  is  splendid.  The  government  now  interferes  with 
natural  right;  it  meddles  with  contracts  between  individuals. 
The  Commune  declares  that  one  does  not  owe  one's  debts,  and 
that  one  service  is  not  paid  for  by  another  service.  It  is  gigan- 
tic in  silliness  and  injustice. 

'  Many  Conservatives  who  wanted  to  preserve  the  Republic 
through  love  of  order,  are  by  way  of  regretting  Badinguet,  and 
in  their  hearts  call  for  the  Prussians.  The  good  folk  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  have  displaced  our  hatreds.  That  is  the  grudge 
I  owe  them.     It  seems  to  me  we  have  never  been  lower. 

*  We  are  tossed  about  between  the  Society  of  St  Vincent  de 
Paul  and  the  International.  But  this  latter  commits  too  many 
follies  to  have  a  long  life.  I  admit  that  it  may  beat  the  troops 
from  Versailles,  and  upset  the  Government ;  the  Prussians  will 
come  into  Paris^  and  "order  will  reign  at  Warsaw.''  If,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  beaten,  the  reaction  will  be  furious,  and  all  liberty 
stiHed. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  263 

'  What  are  we  to  say  of  the  Sociahsts^  who  imitate  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Badinguet  and  WilHam ;  requisitions,  suppressions 
of  papers,  capital  executions  without  trial,  etc.  ?  Ah,  what 
an  immoral  beast  the  people  is  !  And  how  humiliating  to  be 
human ! 

'  Why  no  letters  ?  You  have,  then,  not  received  mine  sent 
from  Dieppe  ?  Are  you  ill  ?  Are  you  still  alive  ?  What  does 
that  mean?  I  certainly  hope  that  neither  you  (nor  any  of 
yours)  are  at  Paris,  capital  of  the  arts,  hearth  of  civilisation, 
centre  of  good  manners  and  politeness. 

'  Do  you  know  the  worst  of  all  that .''  It  is  that  one  gets  used 
to  it.  Yes !  One  puts  up  with  it.  One  gets  accustomed  to 
doing  without  Paris,  to  thinking  no  more  about  it,  and  almost 
to  believing  that  it  is  no  longer  in  existence. 

'  For  my  own  part,  I  am  not  like  the  middle-class  ;  I  think 
that  there  is  no  misfortune  left  after  the  invasion.  The  Prussian 
war  has  affected  me  like  a  great  upheaval  of  nature,  one  of  those 
cataclysms  such  as  happen  every  six  thousand  years  :  while  the 
insurrection  of  Paris  is  in  my  eyes  a  very  clear,  almost  a  simple 
thing.   .  .  . 

'  I  reply  at  once  to  your  questions  on  what  concerns  me  per- 
sonally. No  !  The  Prussians  have  not  sacked  my  habitation. 
They  have  prigged  some  little  articles  of  no  importance,  a  small 
dressing-case,  a  bandbox,  some  pipes  ;  but  in  the  main  they 
have  done  no  harm.  As  for  my  study,  it  has  been  respected. 
I  had  buried  a  great  box  full  of  letters,  and  put  my  voluminous 
notes  on  St.  Anthony  in  a  safe  place.  All  that  I  found 
untouched. 

'  The  worst  of  the  invasion  for  me  is  that  it  has  aged  my  poor 
good  old  mother  by  ten  years.  What  a  change  !  She  can  no 
longer  walk  alone,  and  her  feebleness  is  pitiable.  How  sad  it 
is  to  see  the  beings  one  loves  gradually  deteriorate  !  .  .  . 

' ...  As  for  the  Commune,  which  is  on  the  way  to  expire,  it 
is  the  last  manifestation  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  very  last,  let 
us  hope  ! 

'  I  hate  democracy  (such  at  least  as  it  is  understood  in 
France),  that  is  to  say,  the  exaltation  of  mercy  to  the  detri- 
ment of  justice,  the  negation  of  right ;  in  one  word,  the  opposite 
of  society. 


264  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  The  Commune  rehabilitates  assassins,  as  Jesus  pardoned 
thieves,  and  wealthy  houses  are  pillaged,  because  people  have 
learned  to  curse  Dives  {Lazarus  in  the  original),  who  was  not  a 
bad  rich  man,  but  simply  a  rich  man.  "  The  Republic  is  above 
all  discussion  "  is  worth  as  much  as  the  other  faith,  "  The  Pope 
is  infallible  ! "     Always  formulas,  always  gods  ! 

'  The  last  god  but  one,  who  was  universal  suffrage,  has  just 
played  a  terrible  prank  upon  his  worshippers  in  naming  "  the 
assassins  of  Versailles."  Then  in  what  must  one  believe  ?  In 
nothing  !  That  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom.  It  was  time  to 
rid  oneself  of  "  principles,"  and  to  enter  upon  science,  upon 
inquiry.  The  only  reasonable  thing  (I  always  come  back  to 
this)  is  a  government  of  Mandarins,  provided  that  the  Man- 
darins know  something,  and  even  that  they  know  many  things. 
The  people  is  an  eternal  infant,  and  it  will  always  be  in  the  last 
rank  in  the  hierarchy  of  social  elements,  because  it  is  the 
number,  the  mass,  the  unlimited.  It  matters  little  whether 
many  peasants  know  how  to  read,  and  don't  listen  to  their 
parson,  but  it  is  infinitely  important  that  men  like  Renan  or 
Littre  should  be  able  to  live  and  be  listened  to.  Our  only 
salvation  now  is  in  a  legitimate  aristocracy  ;  I  mean  by  that  a 
majority  which  will  be  composed  of  something  more  than  mere 
figures. 

'  If  people  had  been  more  enlightened,  if  there  had  been  in 
Paris  more  people  knowing  history,  we  should  not  have  put  up 
with  Gambetta,  nor  Prussia,  nor  the  Commune.  What  did  the 
Catholics  do  to  meet  a  great  danger }  They  crossed  them- 
selves, recommending  themselves  to  God  and  the  Saints. 

'  We,  who  are  advanced,  we  go  and  cry,  "  Hurrah  for  the 
Republic!  "  calling  up  the  remembrance  of  1792  ;  and  there  was 
no  doubt  about  the  success ;  mark  that  !  The  Prussian  no 
longer  existed. 

'  We  embraced  one  another  for  joy,  and  kept  hold  of  one 
another,  so  as  not  to  go  and  run  to  the  defiles  of  the  Argonne, 
where  there  are  no  longer  defiles  ;  never  mind,  that  is  tradition  ! 
I  have  a  friend  at  Rouen,  who  proposed  at  a  club  the  manu- 
facture oi  pikes  to  encounter  chassepots  ! 

'  Ah,  how  much  more  practical  it  would  have  been  to  keep 
Badinguet,  and  send  him  to  the  galleys  as  soon  as  peace  was 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  265 

made  !  Austria  did  not  go  into  revolution  after  Sadowa,  nor 
Italy  after  Novara,  nor  Russia  after  Sebastopol !  But  our  good 
Frenchmen  hasten  to  pull  down  their  house  as  soon  as  the 
chimney  takes  fire.  .  .  .' 

'  Croisset,  Jmie  10th,  1871. 

'  Never  have  I  had  a  greater  longing,  a  greater  need,  to  see 
you  than  now.  I  come  from  Paris,  and  I  do  not  know  whom 
to  speak  to.  I  am  suffocated.  I  am  quite  knocked  up,  or 
rather  out  of  heart. 

'  The  odour  of  corpses  disgusts  me  less  than  the  miasma  of 
egotism  breathing  from  all  mouths.  The  sight  of  the  ruins  is 
nothing  in  comparison  with  the  immense  Parisian  inanity. 
With  very  rare  exceptions,  everybody  seemed  to  me  only  fit 
for  the  strait-waistcoat. 

'  One  half  of  the  population  longs  to  hang  the  other  half, 
which  returns  the  compliment.  That  is  clearly  to  be  read  in 
the  eyes  of  the  passers-by. 

'  And  the  Prussians  no  longer  exist !  They  are  excused  and 
admired.  The  "men  of  reason"  wish  to  get  themselves 
naturalised  as  Germans.  I  assure  you,  it  is  enough  to  make 
one  despair  of  the  human  race.  .   .  . 

'What  say  you  of  my  friend  Maury,  who  kept  the  tricolor 
flying  on  the  Archives  the  whole  time  of  the  Commune  ?  I 
think  few  people  are  capable  of  such  a  bit  of  pluck.   .  .   . 

'  Did  you  notice  among  the  documents  found  at  the  Tuileries 

last   September   a  plot   of  a   romance   by    Isidore  ?     What    a 

scenario  ! ' 

'September  6,  1871. 

'.  .  .  But  what  beats  everything  now  is  the  Conservative 
party,  which  does  not  even  go  to  vote,  and  which  does  not 
cease  to  tremble.  You  can't  imagine  the  funk  of  the  Parisians. 
"  In  six  months,  sir,  the  Commune  will  be  established  every- 
where," is  the  universal  answer,  or  rather  wail. 

'  I  do  not  believe  in  a  near  cataclysm,  because  nothing  that 
has  been  foreseen  happens.  The  International  will  perhaps 
end  by  triumphing,  but  not  as  it  hopes,  not  as  is  feared.  Ah  ! 
how  tired  I  am  of  the  base  working-man,  the  inept  middle- 
class  man,  the  stupid  peasant,  and  the  odious  ecclesiastic  ! 

'  That  is  why,  as  far  as  I  can,  I  lose  myself  in  antiquity.      At 


^66  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

the  present  moment  I  am  making  all  the  gods  talk  in  their 
(lying  struggle.  The  second  title  of  my  book  might  be  "  The 
ne  plus  ultra  of  insanity."  And  the  typography  vanishes 
further  and  further  in  my  mind.  Why  publish .''  Who  now 
cares  about  art .''  I  make  literature  for  my  own  satisfaction, 
like  a  middle-class  man  turning  table-rings  in  a  barn.  You 
will  tell  me  that  it  would  be  better  to  be  useful.  But  how  ? 
How  get  a  hearing  }  .  .  .' 

'September  8,  1871. 

' .  .  .  The  idea  of  equality,  which  is  all  the  modern  demo- 
cracy, is  an  essentially  Christian  idea,  and  opposed  to  that  of 
justice.  See  how  pardon  now  predominates  !  Sentiment  is 
everything,  right  nothing.  People  are  even  ceasing  to  be 
indignant  against  the  murderers,  and  the  folk  who  set  fire  to 
Paris  are  less  punished  than  the  libeller  of  M.  Favre.  .   .  . 

' ...  As  to  the  good  people,  "  free  and  compulsory  educa- 
tion" will  finish  it.  When  everybody  is  able  to  read  the  Petit 
Journal  and  Figaro  they  will  not  read  anything  else ;  for  the 
middle-class  man,  the  gentleman  of  property,  reads  nothing 
more.  The  press  is  a  school  of  ignorance,  because  it  relieves 
from  thought.  Say  that,  you  will  be  fine ;  and  if  you  win 
conviction,  you  will  have  done  a  proud  service. 

'  The  first  remedy  would  be  to  be  done  with  universal  suf- 
frage, the  disgrace  of  the  human  intellect.  As  it  is  constituted, 
one  single  element  prevails  to  the  detriment  of  all  others  ; 
number  domineers  over  intellect,  education,  race,  and  even 
money,  which  is  worth  more  than  number. 

'  But  a  society  (which  always  has  need  of  a  kind  God,  of  a 
Saviour)  is  perhaps  incapable  of  defending  itself.  The  Con- 
servative party  has  not  even  the  instinct  of  the  brute  (for  the 
brute  at  least  knows  how  to  fight  for  its  lair  and  its  victuals). 
It  will  be  divided  by  the  Internationals,  the  Jesuits  of  the 
future.  But  those  of  the  past,  who  too  had  neither  country 
nor  justice,  did  not  succeed,  and  the  International  will  founder 
because  it  is  on  the  wrong  tack, — no  ideas,  nothing  but  con- 
cupiscence ! 

'  Ah,  dear  good  master,  if  you  could  only  hate  !  That  is  what 
you  are  wanting  in — hatred  !  In  spite  of  your  great  sphinx 
eyes,  you  have  seen  the  world  through  gold  colour.     It  came 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  267 

from  the  sun  of  your  heart ;  but  so  many  dark  shadows  have 
risen,  that  now  you  no  longer  recognise  things.  Come  then, 
cry,  thunder!  Take  your  grand  lyre  and  twang  the  brazen 
cord :  the  monsters  will  flee.  Water  us  with  the  drops  of  the 
blood  of  outraged  Justice. 

'  Why  do  you  feel  "  the  great  ties  broken  "  ?  What  is  broken  ? 
Your  ties  are  indestructible,  your  sympathy  cannot  go  beyond 
the  eternal, 

'  Our  ignorance  of  history  makes  us  calumniate  our  own  time. 
We  have  always  been  like  this.  Some  calm  years  have  deceived 
us.  That  is  all.  I  too  believed  in  the  softening  of  manners. 
We  must  erase  this  error  and  esteem  ourselves  no  more  than 
people  esteemed  themselves  in  the  time  of  Pericles  or  Shake- 
speare, atrocious  epochs  in  which  fine  things  were  done.  Tell 
me  that  you  lift  your  head,  and  that  you  think  of  your  old 
troubadour,  who  loves  you. 

' .  .  .  The  mass,  the  number,  is  always  idiotic.  I  have  not 
many  convictions,  but  I  hold  to  that  strongly.  However,  the 
mass  must  be  respected,  silly  though  it  be,  because  it  contains 
the  germs  of  an  incalculable  fecundity.  Give  it  liberty  but  not 
power. 

'  I  do  not  believe  any  more  than  you  do  in  class  distinctions. 
Castes  belong  to  archaeology.  But  I  believe  that  the  poor  hate 
the  rich,  and  that  the  rich  are  afraid  of  the  poor.  That  will  be 
so  eternally.  It  is  useless  to  preach  love  to  the  one  or  the  other. 
The  most  pressing  task  is  to  instruct  the  rich,  who,  in  the  end, 
are  the  stronger.  Enlighten  the  middle-class  man  to  begin 
with,  for  he  knows  nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  The  whole 
dream  of  democracy  is  to  raise  the  proletarian  to  the  level  of 
the  inanity  of  the  middle-class  man.  The  dream  is  partly 
accomplished.  He  reads  the  same  papers,  and  has  the  same 
pastimes.  .  .  . 

* .  .  .  The  romantics  will  have  fine  accounts  to  show  with 
their  immoral  sentimentality.  Do  you  remember  a  piece  of 
Victor  Hugo's,  the  Legende  des  Siecles,  where  a  sultan  is  saved 
because  he  took  pity  on  a  pig ;  it  is  always  the  story  of  the  peni- 
tent thief,  blessed  because  he  repented.  It  is  good  to  repent, 
but,  better  still,  to  do  no  wrong.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  That  will  not  change  so  long  as  universal  suffrage  re- 


268  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

mains  what  it  is.  Every  man,  in  my  opinion,  however  low  he 
may  be,  has  a  right  to  one  voice,  his  own,  but  is  not  the  equal 
of  his  neighbour,  who  may  be  worth  a  hundred  times  as  much. 
In  an  industrial  concern  (limited  liability  company)  each  share- 
holder votes  according  to  the  value  of  his  contribution.  So 
should  it  be  in  the  government  of  a  nation.  I  am  quite  worth 
twenty  electors  of  Croisset.  Money,  intellect,  and  even  birth, 
ought  to  be  counted — in  short,  all  the  forces.  Now,  up  to  the 
present,  I  only  see  one,  number.  Ah  !  dear  master,  you  who 
have  so  much  influence,  you  ought  to  bell  the  cat.  .  .  .' 

TO    MADAME    ROGER    DES    GENETTES. 

' .  .  .  I  pledge  you  to  read  Renan's  last  book ;  it  is  very 
good,  that  is  to  say,  I  agree  with  it.  Have  you  read  the  letters 
of  Madame  Sand  in  the  Temps  ?  The  friend  to  whom  they  are 
addressed  is  myself,  for  we  have  had  a  political  correspondence 
this  summer.  What  I  said  to  her  is  partly  to  be  found  in 
Renan's  book.  .  .  .' 

On  the  6th  of  April  1872  Flauberfs  mother  died.  Ten 
days  afterwards  he  wrote  a  short  letter  to  George  Sand, 
concluding  with  these  touching  words  : — 

'  I  have  perceived  during  the  last  fortnight  that  my  poor 
good  old  mother  was  the  being  I  loved  best.  It  is  as  if  part 
of  my  very  bowels  had  been  torn  from  me.'  It  was  to  her 
quite  as  much  as  to  literature  that  he  had  given  his  life ;  for, 
as  he  had  written  to  George  Sand  shortly  before :  '  Litera- 
ture is  not  the  thing  I  love  most  in  the  world.  I  explained 
myself  badly  in  my  last  letter.  I  was  speaking  to  you  of 
distractions  and  of  nothing  else.  I  am  not  such  a  pedant  as 
to  prefer  phrases  to  beings,"*  and  yet  this  same  mother  had 
complained  that  '  the  love  of  phrases  had  dried  up  his 
heart.' 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  THREE  SHORT  STORIES ST.  JULIAN  THE  HOSPITABLE 

The  remaining  eight  years  of  Flaubert's  life  were  spent  in 
ever-increasing  devotion  to  literary  pursuits.  One  by  one  the 
friends  who  had  understood  him,  who  had  enjoyed  his  tur- 
bulence, shared  his  enthusiasms,  died  off,  and  the  void 
around  him  made  him  live  more  and  more  inside  himself. 
Theophile  Gauthier  died  early  in  the  autumn  of  1872,  George 
Sand  in  June  1876  ;  and  though  neither  of  these  had  ever 
belonged  to  the  inmost  circle  of  Flaubert's  friends,  their  loss, 
especially  the  loss  of  the  latter,  was  irreparable.  George 
Sand's  sedative  nature  exerted  a  healthy  influence  upon  '  her 
old  troubadour ' ;  she  made  him  to  some  extent  ashamed  of 
his  intellectual  and  nervous  irritability  ;  her  sympathy  did 
not,  as  is  too  often  the  case,  stimulate  the  morbid  inclina- 
tions of  her  friend. 

The  cold  reception  of  Bouilhet's  posthumous  poems,  of 
his  last  play,  'Mademoiselle  Aisse';  the  rejection  by  the 
theatrical  managers  of  a  comedy  unfinished  by  him,  which 
Flaubert  worked  up,  left  our  poor  giant  smarting  and  raw. 
His  declamations  against  the  '  inanity '  of  his  compatriots, 
and  their  '  hatred '  of  literature,  became  from  this  period 
savage.  He  never  forgave  Levy  for  not  pushing  the  sale  of 
Bouilhet's  Dernieres  Chansons.  It  was  through  his  friend, 
not  through  himself,  that  the  public  indifference  wounded 
him,  and  to  this  we  owe  his  '  revenge,'  Bouvard  et  Peaichet. 

In  spite  of  the  sadness  of  his  letters,  and  their  occasional 

269 


270  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ferocity,  Flaubert  was  still  outwardly  the  impetuous,  eager 
liver  of  old.  His  irritability  never  degenerated  into  mere 
bad  temper,  and  those  who  had  to  live  intimately  with  him 
during  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  dwelt  on  his  '  tenderness ' 
as  the  one  distinguishing  feature  of  his  character. 

In  1875  M.  Commanville  lost  all  his  property  owing  to  an 
unfortunate  turn  in  his  business  ;  his  wife,  Flauberfs  niece, 
the  Liline  of  his  letters,  though  possessed  of  property  of  her 
own,  was  not  able,  owing  to  the  laws  regulating  doweries  in 
Normandy,  to  advance  her  capital  to  her  husband,  and 
Flaubert  spontaneously  handed  over  all  his  own  capital  to 
the  Commanvilles.  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes  says  of 
him,  '  He  gave  up  d£'48,000  as  one  gives  a  thousand  crowns.' 
In  return  for  this  he  was  to  live  at  Croisset,  and  be  allowed 
an  annual  income.  From  this  time  his  niece  lived  with  him 
at  Croisset,  or  close  to  him  in  Paris  ;  she  sat  in  his  study, 
and  became,  as  Bouilhet  had  been,  the  first  recipient  of  the 
newly-hatched  phrases,  the  audience  upon  whom  everything 
was  tested.  Thus  his  domestic  life  was  not  absolutely 
devoid  of  alleviations.  Further,  he  found  in  the  Russian 
TourgeniefF  a  calm  and  brotherly  friend,  whose  gentleness  of 
manner  was  no  less  pleasing  to  Flaubert  than  his  accurate 
scholarship  and  penetrating  judgment.  Alphonse  Daudet 
and  Zola  became  literary,  if  not  intimate,  friends,  and  then 
there  was  the  young  Guy  de  Maupassant,  nephew  to  Alfred 
le  Poittevin,  who  stirred  in  Flaubert  something  of  the  same 
feeling  which  had  formerly  been  roused  by  Alfred  le  Poittevin 
himself  and  Louis  Bouilhet. 

To  understand  Flaubert  it  is  necessary  to  know  his  friend- 
ships ;  he  lived  in  them  and  in  his  literature ;  that  was  the 
man's  whole  existence  outside  of  his  family  ;  how  he  respected 
those  claims  we  have  seen.  After  the  death  of  Louis  Bouilhet 
Flaubert    resumed    more  intimate  relations   with   Ducamp ; 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  271 

everything  that  Avas  associated  with  his  youth  became  sacred 
to  him  as  time  went  on,  and  though  Ducamp  evidently  con- 
tinued to  be  in  many  ways  irritating  to  him,  the  two  men, 
the  sole  survivors  of  their  generation,  felt  a  need  of  one 
another. 

The  literary  work  of  these  last  years  was  first  the  long- 
deferred  St.  Aiithoni/,  which  after  an  incubation  of  thirty- 
five  years  was  at  last  reduced  to  a  form  in  which  it  could  be 
published  ;  the  first  part  of  Bouvard  et  Pecucliet,  a  work 
which  Flaubert  regarded  as  the  complement  of  the  ^S*^. 
Anthony,  the  Trois  Contes,  which  were  written  by  a  sudden 
inspiration  in  1876,  though  one  of  them  had  been  for  many 
years  in  a  state  of  gestation  in  Flaubert's  mind ;  and  a 
comedy,  '  The  Candidate,'  which  was  produced  at  the  Vaude- 
ville early  in  1874,  and  proved  '  a  frost,''  though  it  is  excel- 
lent reading.  The  characters  are  too  impersonal  for  dramatic 
effect,  and  do  not  readily  lend  themselves  to  the  art  of  the 
actor,  which  is  another  thing  from  the  art  of  the  writer. 

The  three  stories  are  the  epitome  of  Flaubert's  literary 
work  ;  they  are  not  printed  in  the  order  in  which  they  were 
written,  which  is  somewhat  unfortunate,  as  in  that  one  year, 
1876,  Flaubert  travelled  over  the  same  literary  path  that  his 
mind  had  followed  in  the  com-se  of  his  whole  life.  The  first 
work  he  planned  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  St.  Anthony  ; 
St.  Julien  V Hospitaller,  which  was  the  first  written  of  the 
three  stories,  belongs  to  the  epoch  of  lyricism  ;  it  is  a  prose 
chant,  reproducing  the  religious  atmosphere  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages  ;  in  it  Flaubert  makes  for  once  happy  use  of 
his  love  for  sounding  names,  and  his  intimate  acquaintance 
with  strange  beasts  and  legendary  monsters. 

As  the  excessively  poetical  and  fantastic  ^S*^.  Anthony  was 
succeeded  by  Madame  Bovary,  that  pitiless  analysis  of  com- 
monplace middle-class  relations,  so  the  Story  of  a  Simple 


272  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Soul  followed  St.  Julien  ;  it  is  the  life  of  a  good,  faithful, 
narrow-minded  servant-girl,  who,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  her  life,  lives  for  and  is  disregarded  by  others.  Strokes 
of  savage  satire  abound  in  this  short  story,  and  perhaps 
unduly  divert  the  attention  from  the  pathetic  tragedy  which 
is  the  main  subject. 

Then,  as  if  to  recompense  himself  for  the  self-repression  of 
the  Simple  Soul,  Flaubert  sought  his  next  subject  in  the 
East,  just  as  Salammbo  followed  Madame  Bovary,  and  wrote 
the  story  of  Herodias,  a  short  masterpiece,  in  which  for  once 
he  did  not  allow  his  archaeology  or  his  love  of  the  grotesque 
to  run  away  with  him. 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Flaubert  did  not  discover 
the  short  prose  story  earlier  in  life ;  for  it  is  the  form  best 
suited  to  his  peculiar  powers.  It  represses  automatically 
his  worst  fault,  his  tendency  to  be  drawn  away  from  his 
main  subject  by  side  issues,  and  to  overload  his  plot  with 
details  interesting  and  amusing  in  themselves,  but  not  neces- 
sary to  the  development  of  the  subject,  or  illustrative  of  it 
by  contrast ;  it  demands  accuracy  and  refinement  of  work- 
manship, exactly  suiting  the  cadenced  prose  of  which  Flaubert 
was  enamoured  ;  while  its  special  weakness,  its  tendency  to 
encourage  the  appeal  to  the  emotions  rather  than  to  the 
intellect,  was  the  one  literary  pitfall  into  which  Flaubert  was 
physically  incapable  of  straying. 

Of  the  three  stories  perhaps  the  St.  Julien  is  the  most 
characteristic,  and  a  more  detailed  description  of  it  will  be 
profitable  to  the  reader  who  wishes  to  know  wherein  lay 
the  power  which  differentiates  Flaubert  from  other  powerful 
writers. 

There  are  at  least  three  mediaeval  saints  whose  lives  and 
conversions  are  connected  with  the  chase :  St.  Hubert,  St. 
Eustace,  and  St.  Julian.     When  our  noble  forefathers  were 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  273 

not  at  war,  they  were  hunting.  The  modern  game-laws  are 
directly  descended  from  those  stringent  mediaeval  regula- 
tions, which  forbade  to  the  common  man  the  chase  of  certain 
animals :  from  those  forest-laws,  whose  severity  made  the 
death  of  William  Rufus  seem  to  his  contemporaries  a  judg- 
ment from  heaven.  A  converted  sportsman  was  as  attractive 
to  the  mediaeval  mind  as  the  converted  thief  and  drunkard 
to  the  revivalists  and  Salvation  Army  of  to-day.  St.  Hubert 
and  St.  Eustace  were  both  mighty  hunters,  who  owed  their 
salvation  to  the  apparition  of  a  stag  bearing  a  golden  crucifix 
between  his  horns.  The  conversion  of  St.  Julian  was  effected 
in  another  way  ;  this  is  how  it  happened. 

Julian  was  the  son  of  noble  and  devout  parents,  in  whose 
well-fortified  castle  he  was  brought  up.  Soon  after  his  birth 
his  mother  had  a  vision,  in  which  an  aged  hermit  announced 
to  her  that  her  son  would  be  a  saint ;  at  the  same  time  a 
mendicant  mysteriously  muttered  to  his  father  :  '  Thy  son — 
much  blood  ! — much  glory  ! — always  fortimate,  an  emperor's 
family.'  The  boy  was  educated  in  accordance  with  the 
prospect  of  the  double  destiny  ;  his  mother  provided  him 
with  monks  to  instruct  him  in  religion,  his  father  with 
men-at-arms  and  huntsmen. 

'  One  day  during  mass,  on  lifting  his  head  he  perceived  a 
little  white  mouse  coming  out  of  a  hole  in  the  wall.  It  tripped 
upon  the  first  step  of  the  altar,  and  after  two  or  three  turns  to 
the  right  and  left  ran  away  on  the  same  side.  The  Sunday 
following  he  was  disturbed  by  the  idea  that  he  might  see  it 
again.  It  came  back  ;  and  every  Sunday  he  awaited  it,  was 
annoyed  by  it,  was  filled  with  hatred  and  resolved  to  do  away 
with  it. 

'  Then  having  closed  the  door  and  scattered  some  crumbs  of 
a  cake  on  the  steps,  he  posted  himself  before  the  hole  with  a 
wand  in  his  hand. 

'After  a  very  long  time  the  pink  nose  appeared,  then  the 
whole  mouse.     He  struck  a  light  blow,  and  stood  astounded 

s 


274  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

before  this  little  body  which  had  ceased  to  move.  A  drop  of 
blood  stained  the  flags.  He  quickly  wiped  it  away  with  his 
sleeve,  threw  the  mouse  outside,  and  told  nobody.' 

From  this  time  onward  Julian  was  possessed  with  a  rage 
for  killing.  His  father  gave  him  a  pack  of  homids ;  all  the 
instruments  of  mediaeval  sport ;  but  Julian  preferred  to 
hunt  by  himself  with  his  horse  and  his  hawk,  or  his  dogs. 
He  spent  long  days  in  the  chase,  and  '  came  back  in  the 
middle  of  the  night  covered  with  gore  and  mud,  with  thorns 
in  his  hair,  and  with  the  odour  of  wild  beasts  upon  him. 
He  became  like  them.  When  his  mother  kissed  him  he 
would  accept  her  embrace  coldly,  seeming  to  dream  of  deep 
things. "" 

One  day,  having  wandered  far  from  home  into  a  wild 
country,  he  entered  an  avenue  of  great  trees  like  a  triumphal 
arch  at  the  entrance  of  a  forest ;  animals  of  all  kinds 
swarmed  around  him,  and  he  slew  them  all ;  at  last,  crowded 
in  a  narrow  alley,  he  discovered  an  immense  herd  of  deer ; 
they  all  fell  before  the  bolts  of  his  cross-bow.  Night 
came  on. 

'  Julian  leaned  against  a  tree.  He  contemplated  with  wide 
eyes  the  enormity  of  the  massacre,  not  understanding  how  he 
had  been  able  to  slay  so  much. 

'  On  the  other  side  of  the  valley,  on  the  edge  of  the  forest, 
he  perceived  a  stag,  a  hind,  and  her  fawn. 

'  The  stag,  which  was  black  and  huge  in  size,  carried  sixteen 
points  and  had  a  white  beard.  The  hind,  golden  as  dead 
leaves,  cropped  the  grass ;  and  the  spotted  fawn,  without 
hindering  her  course,  tugged  at  her  teats. 

'  The  cross-bow  twanged  once  more.  The  fawn  was  killed 
at  once.  Then  its  mother,  looking  to  heaven,  cried  with  a 
deep,  rending  human  voice,  Julian,  furious,  stretched  her  on 
the  ground  with  a  shot  full  in  the  breast. 

'  The  great  stag  had  seen,  bounded.     Julian  despatched  his 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  275 

last  arrow  at  him.      It  hit  him  in  the  forehead^  and  stayed 
there. 

'  The  great  stag  seemed  not  to  feel  it ;  striding  over  the 
dead  he  kept  advancing,  was  going  to  rush  upon  him,  tear  him ; 
and  Julian  retreated  in  an  inexpressible  terror.  The  monstrous 
animal  stopped,  and  with  flaming  eyes,  reverend  as  a  patriarch, 
and  like  a  judge,  three  times  repeated,  while  there  sounded  the 
toll  of  a  distant  bell :  "  Accm-sed  !  Accursed  !  Accursed  !  One 
day,  savage  heai*t,  thou  shalt  slay  thy  father  and  thy  mother ! " 
He  bent  his  knees,  gently  closed  his  eyelids,  and  died.' 

Horror  seized  Julian  ;  he  made  his  way  home  possessed 
with  apprehension  and  dread ;  two  accidents  which  seemed 
likely  to  bring  about  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy  so 
alarmed  him  that  he  fled  from  home. 

Julian  joined  a  troop  of  soldiers  of  fortune;  soon  he 
became  their  leader ;  his  fame  spread  through  the  world, 
he  gathered  together  an  army. 

*  Turn  by  turn  he  aided  the  Dauphin  of  France,  and  the  King 
of  England,  the  Templars  of  Jerusalem,  the  Surena  of  the 
Parthians,  the  Negus  of  Abyssinia,  and  the  Emperor  of  Calicut. 
He  fought  Scandinavians  covered  with  fish-scales,  negroes  with 
targets  of  hippopotamus  leather,  and  mounted  on  red  asses, 
Indians  coloured  like  gold,  and  brandishing  over  their  diadems 
broad  sabres  brighter  than  mirrors.  He  conquered  the  Troglo- 
dytes and  the  Anthropophagi.  He  crossed  countries  so  scorch- 
ing that  the  hair  took  fire  of  itself  under  the  burning  sun,  like 
a  torch  ;  and  others  which  were  so  dry  that  the  arms  dropping 
from  the  body  fell  to  the  ground  ;  and  lands  where  there  was 
so  much  mist  that  one  walked  surrounded  by  phantoms.' 

Eventually  he  rendered  such  a  service  to  the  Emperor  of 
Occitania  that  he  gave  him  his  daughter  in  marriage. 

Julian  forswore  the  chase  as  being  likely  to  bring  down 
the  curse,  though  his  dreams  were  haunted  by  strange 
animals,  and  he  became  so  melancholy  that  his  wife  inquired 

and  learned  the  reason  of  his  sorrows.     She  encouraeed  him 

o 


276  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

to  resume  his  old  amusement;  his  parents  must  by  this 
time  be  dead. 

One  night  JuHan  was  disturbed  in  his  prayers  by  the 
barking  of  a  fox  under  the  window ;  he  heard  light  steps  ; 
he  looked  out  and  seemed  to  see  the  forms  of  animals  in 
the  dusk. 

The  temptation  was  too  strong ;  he  took  down  his  quiver 
from  the  peg  and  went  out. 

He  had  scarcely  gone  before  an  old  man  and  an  old  woman 
arrived  at  the  castle  bent  with  years  and  fatigue  ;  they  were 
his  father  and  mother,  who  had  been  seeking  their  son  for 
years  through  the  world.  The  Princess  accepted  their  proofs, 
waited  on  them,  laid  them  to  sleep  in  her  own  bed. 

Meanwhile  Julian  had  wandered  far ;  the  beasts  which 
had  disturbed  him  were  gone  ;  he  entered  a  forest ;  then  a 
plain  ;  then  sandhills  ;  and  at  last  he  came  to  a  high  table- 
land, which  was  a  place  of  tombs.  Hyaenas  came  round 
him,  and  then  fled  from  him.  In  a  ravine  he  found  a  bull ; 
his  spear  broke  upon  it,  as  though  the  animal  had  been  of 
bronze.  Filled  with  shame  he  re-entered  the  forest ;  it  was 
full  of  the  eyes  of  animals,  which  watched  him  ;  he  shot  at 
them  in  vain ;  became  furious  with  rage,  turned  homewards ; 
then  all  the  beasts  formed  a  circle  round  him  ;  he  pressed 
forward ;  they  made  way,  then  followed  him  ;  crowded  on 
his  footsteps  ;  they  seemed  to  ridicule  him,  to  be  certain  of 
some  vengeance. 

At  last  the  cock  crew  ;  day  broke  ;  and  he  recognised  the 
roof  of  the  palace  above  the  orange-trees. 

'  Then  at  the  edge  of  a  field  he  saw,  only  three  steps  off,  some 
red-legged  partridges  fluttering  in  the  stubble.  He  unclasped 
his  mantle,  flung  it  over  them  like  a  net ;  when  he  uncovered 
them  he  found  only  one  ;  and  it  had  been  long  dead,  rotten. 

'  This  deception  exasperated  him  more  than  all  the  others. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  277 

His  thirst  for  carnage  came  upon  him  again  ;  beasts  failing  him, 
he  would  have  liked  to  massacre  men/ 

Returning  to  his  palace,  and  entering  his  own  chamber, 
he  saw  two  forms  on  the  bed  ;  one  was  a  bearded  man ; 
filled  with  a  furious  jealousy,  he  slew  both.  The  curse  was 
accomplished. 

The  next  day  Julian  fled  from  the  palace  after  exhorting 
his  wife  to  pray  for  his  soul. 

He  begged  his  way  over  the  world  ;  when  he  told  his 
story  all  fled  from  him  ;  even  the  animals  avoided  him. 

'  He  sought  the  solitudes.  But  the  wind  brought  to  his  ear 
sounds  like  the  death-rattle  ;  the  dew  tears  dropping  on  the 
ground  reminded  him  of  other  drops  of  heavier  weight.  The 
sun  every  evening  spread  blood  upon  the  clouds  ;  and  every 
night  his  crime  was  renewed  in  his  dreams.' 

At  last  he  came  to  a  river  where  there  was  a  ford  so 
dangerous  that  for  a  long  Avhile  no  one  had  dared  to  cross. 
An  old  boat  lay  half-buried  in  the  mud  among  the  reeds. 
Julian  discovered  a  pair  of  oars  in  it,  and  the  idea  occurred 
to  him  to  spend  his  existence  in  the  service  of  others. 

He  built  with  his  hands  two  piers  on  either  strand, 
repaired  the  boat,  and  made  himself  a  little  hut  on  the 
shore  with  dried  mud  and  stems  of  trees. 

Thus  he  lived  for  long,  tortured  by  the  heat  of  the  day,  by 
the  cold  of  the  night,  by  the  bites  of  poisonous  insects,  living 
on  the  alms  grudged  by  those  whom  he  ferried  over  the  water. 

'  One  night,  when  he  was  sleeping,  he  thought  he  heard 
some  one  call.  He  listened  and  could  only  hear  the  roaring  of 
the  waves. 

'  But  the  same  voice  repeated  "  Julian."  It  came  from  the 
other  side,  which,  considering  the  breadth  of  the  river,  seemed 
to  him  marvellous. 

'A  third  time  there  was  a  call,  "Julian."  And  this  deep  voice 
had  the  tone  of  a  minster  bell. 

'Having  lighted  his  lantern  he  went  out  of  the  hut.     A 


278  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

furious  hurricane  filled  the  night.     The   darkness  was  deep, 
here  and  there  rent  by  the  whiteness  of  leaping  waves. 

'  After  a  moment's  hesitation  Julian  untied  the  rope.  Im- 
mediately the  water  became  calm,  the  craft  glided  over  it  and 
touched  the  other  bank,  where  a  man  was  waiting. 

'  He  was  wrapped  in  a  ragged  cloth,  his  face  like  a  plaster 
mask,  and  his  eyes  redder  than  coals  of  fire.  On  placing  the 
lantern  near  him  Julian  perceived  that  he  was  covered  with  a 
hideous  leprosy  ;  still  there  was  in  his  attitude  as  it  were  a 
king's  majesty. 

'  As  soon  as  he  entered  the  boat,  it  sank  prodigiously, 
crushed  beneath  his  weight ;  it  rose  with  a  jerk,  and  Julian 
began  to  row. 

'  At  each  stroke  of  the  oar  the  surging  waves  lifted  it  in 
front.  The  water,  blacker  than  ink,  coursed  furiously  past  the 
gunwales,  it  sank  into  bottomless  hollows,  lifted  itself  into 
mountains ;  and  the  shallop  leapt  over  them,  then  plunged 
into  depths,  where  it  revolved,  the  sport  of  the  winds. 

'Julian  flung  himself  forward,  straightened  his  arms,  and 
making  a  buttress  of  his  legs  and  feet,  thrust  himself  back  with 
a  convulsive  motion  of  the  body  to  increase  his  strength.  The 
hail  lashed  his  hands,  the  rain  poured  down  his  back,  the  force 
of  the  wind  strangled  him  ;  he  stopped.  Then  the  boat  drifted 
away  down  stream.  But  understanding  that  he  had  to  do  with 
something  out  of  the  ordinary,  with  an  order  which  he  could  not 
fail  to  obey,  he  took  up  the  oars  again  ;  and  the  regular  beat  of 
the  rowlocks  broke  the  howling  of  the  storm. 

'  The  little  lantern  burned  in  front  of  him.  Birds  fluttering 
past  hid  it  from  time  to  time.  But  he  never  ceased  to  see  the 
eyeballs  of  the  leper  who  stood  in  the  stern,  immoveable  as 
a  column.     That  lasted  a  long  while,  a  very  long  while  ! 

'  When  they  had  reached  the  hut  Julian  closed  the  door, 
and  he  saw  him  seated  on  the  stool.  The  kind  of  shroud  that 
covered  him  had  fallen  to  his  hips ;  and  his  shoulders,  his  chest, 
his  thin  arms  were  barely  to  be  seen  under  folds  of  scaly  pustules. 
Enormous  wrinkles  fuiTowed  his  forehead.  He  had  a  hole  in 
the  place  of  his  nose,  like  a  skeleton ;  and  his  blue  lips  gave 
forth  a  putrid  breath,  thick  like  a  mist. 

'  "  I  am  hungry  !  "  he  said. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  279 

'  Julian  gave  him  what  he  possessed — an  old  scrap  of  bacon, 
and  the  crusts  of  a  black  loaf, 

'  When  he  had  devoured  them,  the  table,  the  dish,  and  the 
handle  of  the  knife  had  the  same  patches  that  wei'e  to  be  seen 
on  his  body. 

■  Then  he  said,  "  I  am  thirsty  !  " 

'  Julian  went  to  fetch  his  pitcher ;  and  as  he  took  it  there 
came  a  scent  from  it  which  opened  his  heart  and  his  nostrils. 
It  was  wine  ;  what  a  windfall  !  But  the  leper  stretched  out  his 
arm,  and  at  one  gulp  emptied  the  jug, 

'  Then  he  said,  "  I  am  cold  !  " 

'  Julian  lit  a  bundle  of  brushwood  in  the  middle  of  the  cabin 
with  his  taper. 

'  The  leper  came  to  warm  himself  by  it ;  and  squatting  on 
his  heels,  he  trembled  in  all  his  limbs,  sank  ;  his  eyes  no  longer 
burned,  his  sores  flowed,  and  in  an  almost  inaudible  voice  he 
murmured,  "  Thy  bed  ! " 

'  Julian  gently  helped  him  to  drag  himself  to  it,  and,  to  cover 
him,  even  stretched  the  sail  of  his  boat  over  him. 

'  The  leper  moaned.  In  the  corners  of  his  mouth  his  teeth 
gleamed,  a  rapid  rattle  shook  his  chest,  and  at  each  breath  his 
belly  sank  to  his  back-bone. 

'  Then  he  closed  his  eyes. 

' "  I  have,  as  it  were,  ice  in  my  veins  !  Come  and  lie 
by  me  ! " 

'  And  Julian,  drawing  back  the  sail,  lay  close  to  him  on  the 
dead  leaves,  side  by  side. 

'  The  leper  turned  his  head. 

' "  Take  off  thy  garments,  that  I  may  enjoy  the  warmth  of 
thy  body  !" 

'Julian  took  off  his  clothing;  then,  naked  as  on  the  day  of 
his  birth,  he  took  his  place  again  in  the  bed,  and  he  felt  the 
skin  of  the  leper  against  his  thigh  colder  than  a  serpent,  and 
rougher  than  a  file. 

'  He  tried  to  comfort  him,  and  the  other  replied,  gasping  : 

'  "  Alas,  I  am  going  to  die  !  Come  near  me,  warm  me  !  Not 
with  thy  hands  !     But  with  thy  whole  body." 

'  Julian  stretched  himself  entirely  over  him,  mouth  to  mouth, 
breast  to  breast. 


280  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Then  the  leper  strained  him  to  his  heart ;  and  his  eyes  sud- 
denly took  the  brightness  of  stars  ;  his  hair  spread  out  like  the 
rays  of  the  sun ;  the  breath  of  his  nostrils  became  as  the  sweet- 
ness of  roses ;  a  cloud  of  incense  floated  up  from  the  hearth  ; 
the  waves  began  to  sing.  A  hugeness  of  delight,  a  joy  more 
than  human,  descended  like  a  flood  into  the  soul  of  Julian  in 
his  ecstasy ;  and  he,  whose  arms  enfolded  him,  was  growing, 
growing,  touching  the  one  wall  of  the  cabin  with  his  head,  with 
his  feet  the  other.  The  roof  was  lifted  off",  the  firmament 
unfolded  :  and  Julian  rose  into  the  blue  depths,  face  to  face 
with  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  was  carrying  him  to  heaven. 

*  That  is  the  story  of  St.  Julian  the  Hospitable,  such  nearly  as 
it  is  to  be  found  on  a  stained-glass  window  in  my  own  country.' 

As  the  St.  Anthony  was  suggested  by  Breughel's  picture 
at  Genoa,  so  a  window  in  the  cathedral  at  Rouen  was  the 
germ  of  this  legend ;  which  is  written  with  the  fullest 
realisation  of  the  mental  condition  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
when  the  map  of  the  world  was  not,  and  fabulous  monsters 
and  equally  fabulous  monarchs  were  the  food  of  the  every- 
day imagination.  Once  or  twice  the  irrepressible  satirical 
tendency  asserts  itself,  but  not  so  as  to  jar,  and  for  once 
Flaubert's  prodigious  learning  is  skilfully  used,  skilfully, 
because  it  is  necessary  to  reproduce  the  mediaeval  atmo- 
sphere ;  and  though  Maxime  Ducamp  derides  Flaubert  for 
having  read  all  the  ancient  books  of  venery  in  order  to 
write  a  page  or  two  of  this  story,  the  laboui"  was  not  wasted. 
The  tale  would  have  sold  as  well,  would  possibly  have  been 
read  more,  had  its  author  been  content  to  be  superficial ; 
but  then  it  would  not  have  shown,  as  it  assuredly  does  show, 
'  the  lion's  claw.' 


CHAPTER  XIX 

LETfERS  TO  GEORGE  SAND HER  DEATH 

During  these  last  eight  years  there  are  many  bright  pas- 
sages in  the  letters,  and  many  suggestive  passages  in  spite  of 
the  prevailing  tone  of  melancholy  or  irritation.  Flaubert 
tells  George  Sand,  on  the  12th  of  July  1872,  '  I  have  just 
read  Dickens''s  Pickwick.  Do  you  know  it  ?  There  are 
superb  passages  in  it ;  but  what  a  defective  composition  ! 
All  the  English  writers  have  this  fault,  except  Walter  Scott ; 
they  want  plan.  That  is  unendurable  to  us  Latins.''  We 
may  be  prepared  to  pocket  our  national  pride  and  accept  the 
indictment,  but  what  an  exception ! — Walter  Scott,  who 
began  Guy  Mannering  with  one  intention  and  ended  it  in 
another  sense,  without  taking  the  trouble  to  change  the 
beginning ;  who  incorporated  in  his  later  novels  stories  heard 
over  the  wine  the  evening  before  ! 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Flaubert  began  to  write  to 
George  Sand  under  the  name  of  the  Pere  Cruchard  (Juggins 
again),  Director  of  the  Ladies  of  Disillusion. 

There  are  some  striking  passages  in  a  letter  written  in 
October  1872  to  George  Sand  on  the  occasion  of  the  death 
of  Theophile  Gauthier : — 

* .  .  .  Although  foreseen,  the  death  of  poor  Theo  has  over- 
whelmed me.  He  is  the  last  of  my  intimate  friends  to  depart. 
He  closes  the  list.     Whom  shall  I  see  now  when  I  go  to  Paris  } 

281 


282  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

with  whom  talk  of  what  interests  me  ?  I  know  some  thinkers, 
at  least  people  who  are  styled  such,  but  an  artist !  Where  is 
there  one  ? 

'  I  tell  you  that  he  died  of  the  modern  "  carrion."  That  was 
his  own  phrase ;  and  he  repeated  it  a  thousand  times  to  me  this 
winter :  "  I  am  dying  of  the  commune." 

'  The  fourth  of  September  inaugurated  an  order  of  things  in 
which  people  such  as  he  have  no  longer  any  place  in  the  world. 
One  must  not  ask  orange-trees  for  apples.  The  artists  in  luxury 
are  superfluous  in  a  society  in  which  the  people  is  dominant. 

*  How  I  regret  him  !  He  and  Bouilhet  are  absolutely  want- 
ing to  me,  and  nothing  can  replace  them.  He  was  so  good  too, 
and  whatever  people  may  say,  so  simple.  Later  on  it  will  be 
recognised,  if  people  ever  come  back  to  concei*n  themselves 
with  literature,  that  he  was  a  gi'eat  poet.  Meanwhile  he  is  a 
totally  unknown  author.     So  is  Pierre  Corneille. 

'  He  had  two  hatreds  :  the  hatred  of  shopkeepers  in  his  youth, 
that  gave  him  talent ;  the  hatred  of  the  cad  in  his  mature  age, 
that  last  killed  him.  He  died  of  suppressed  fury,  of  wrath  at 
not  being  able  to  say  what  he  thought.  He  was  swept  down 
by  Girardin,  Fould,  Dalloz,  and  by  the  first  Republic  (1848).  I 
tell  you  that  because  /  have  seen  abominable  things,  and  because 
I  am  perhaps  the  only  man  to  whom  he  imparted  his  confid- 
ences in  full.  He  was  wanting  in  what  is  the  most  important 
thing  in  life  for  one's  self  and  for  others,  character.  To  have 
missed  the  Academy  was  to  him  a  terrible  grief.  What  feeble- 
ness!  How  little  he  must  have  thought  of  himself!  The 
quest  of  any  honour  whatever  seems  to  me,  moreover,  an  act  of 
incomprehensible  modesty.' 

Theophile  Gauthier  was  a  poor  man,  and  had  to  support 
a  large  family  as  best  he  could  by  journalism;  he  did  not 
always  find  it  easy  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  taste  of 
his  editors.  His  private  life  was  irreproachable,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  forgive  him  such  work  as  Mademoiselle  de 
Maupin. 

George  Sand  at  this  time  frequently  urged  Flaubert  to 
marry  ;  his  answer  was  generally  to  the  same  effect : — 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  283 

'  As  for  living  with  a  wife,  marrying,  as  you  advise  me,  the 
prospect  seems  to  me  fantastic.  Why  ?  I  am  sure  I  don't 
know.  But  that  is  how  it  is.  Explain  the  problem.  The 
feminine  has  never  been  dove-tailed  into  my  existence ;  and 
then  I  am  not  rich  enough,  and  then,  and  then  ...  I  am  too 
old  .  .  .  and  then  too  decent  to  inflict  my  person  on  another 
to  all  eternity.  There  is  an  ecclesiastical  basis  in  me  which  is 
not  recognised.' 

Two  years  later  he  writes : — 

*  What  you  say  to  me  of  your  dear  little  ones  has  moved  me 
to  the  bottom  of  my  soul !  Why  is  that  not  mine  ?  Yet  I  was 
born  with  the  capacity  for  all  tenderness.  But  one  does  not 
make  one's  destiny,  one  submits  to  it.  I  was  a  coward  in  my 
youth,  /  7vas  afraid  of  life  !     Everything  gets  its  reward.' 

Flaubert  on  other  rare  occasions  alluded  to  his  'fear  of 
life,"*  and  this  has  been  understood  as  a  reference  to  his 
epileptic  tendency ;  but  there  is  no  occasion  to  restrict  the 
significance  of  the  remark.  There  are  men  who  shrink  from 
marriage,  not  from  a  want  of  tenderness,  but  from  an  excess ; 
who  have  too  vivid  an  imagination  for  its  responsibilities, 
who  cannot  face  the  interference  with  other  ties,  the  probable 
interruption  to  pursuits  and  pleasures,  to  what  they  believe 
to  be  the  serious  business  of  their  lives.  We  have  not  all 
of  us  the  happy  hardness  of  Hotspur,  and  his  contemptuous 
indifference  to  his  wife's  anxieties. 

The  first  mention  of  Guy  de  Maupassant,  who  was  born 
just  before  Flauberfs  return  from  his  eighteen  months  of 
Eastern  travel,  is  in  a  letter  to  de  Maupassant's  mother, 
dated  October  30th,  1872 :  '  Your  son  is  right  to  love  me, 
for  I  feel  a  real  friendship  for  him.  He  is  intellectual,  well 
read,  charming,  and  then  he  is  your  son,  he  is  the  nephew 
of  my  poor  Alfred.' 

Allusion  has  before  been  made  to  Flaubert's  wrath  against 


284  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Levy  the  publisher ;  this  is  how  he  speaks  of  it  to  George 
Sand  : — 

'  Do  not  vex  yourself  about  Levy !  and  do  not  let  us  talk  any 
more  about  him.  He  is  not  worthy  to  occupy  our  thoughts  for 
a  moment.  He  has  wounded  me  deeply  in  a  sensitive  place — 
the  memory  of  my  poor  Bouilhet !  That  is  irreparable.  I  am 
not  a  Christian^  and  the  hypocrisy  of  pardon  is  impossible  to  me. 
I  have  only  not  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him  again.  That 
is  all.     I  even  wish  never  to  set  eyes  on  him  more.     Amen. 

'  Do  not  take  the  exaggerations  of  my  furibundity  too  seriously. 
Do  not  go  and  think  that  I  "  count  on  posterity  to  avenge  me 
for  the  indifference  of  my  contemporaries.'' 

'  All  I  intended  to  say  was  this  :  when  a  man  does  not  address 
himself  to  the  crowd,  it  is  only  just  that  the  crowd  should  not 
pay  him.  That  is  political  economy.  Now  I  maintain  that  a 
work  of  art  (worthy  of  that  name,  and  executed  with  conscience) 
is  beyond  valuation,  has  no  commercial  value,  cannot  be  paid 
for.  Conclusion — if  the  artist  has  no  private  income,  he  must 
die  of  hunger !  People  think  that  the  writer,  because  he  no 
longer  receives  a  pension  from  the  great,  is  much  more  free, 
more  noble.  His  whole  social  nobility  now  consists  in  not  being 
the  equal  of  a  grocer.  What  an  advance  !  As  for  me,  you  tell 
me  :  "  Let  us  be  logical,"  but  that  is  just  the  difficulty. 

'  I  am  not  at  all  sure  of  writing  good  things,  or  that  the  book 
I  am  now  thinking  of  (Bouvard  et  Pecuchel)  can  be  well  done  ; 
which,  however,  does  not  prevent  me  from  undertaking  it.  I 
think  that  the  idea  of  it  is  original ;  no  more  than  that.  And 
then,  as  I  hope  to  spit  into  it  the  bile  which  is  choking  me, 
that  is  to  say,  to  emit  some  truths,  I  hope  in  this  way  to  purge 
myself,  and  be  more  Olympian  afterwards,  a  quality  in  which  I 
am  absolutely  deficient.  Ah  !  How  I  would  like  to  admire 
myself ! ' 

The  work  of  collecting  facts  for  Bouvard  et  Peciichet  went 
on  steadily  in  spite  of  failing  health  and  other  interruptions ; 
at  one  time  Flaubert  was  reading  chemistry,  at  another 
agricultural  hand-books,  medicine,  political  philosophy,  etc. 
etc.,  and  still  found  time  to  laugh  at  himself  occasionally : — 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  285 

'  If  my  frightful  cold  goes  on^  my  stay  here  (in  Paris)  will  be 
useless  !  Am  I  going  to  become  like  that  Canon  of  Poitiers  of 
whom  Montaigne  speaks,  who  for  thirty  years  had  not  gone  out 
of  his  room  "  by  reason  of  the  incommodity  of  his  melancholy," 
and  who  none  the  less  was  in  excellent  health,  "  save  for  a 
rheum,  which  had  fallen  upon  his  stomach."  ...  In  the  matter 
of  reading  I  have  just  swallowed  the  whole  of  the  odious  Joseph 
de  Maistre.  Surely  that  gentleman  has  been  pretty  fairly  in- 
flicted upon  us ;  and  to  think  of  the  modern  socialists  who  have 
preached  him  up !  beginning  with  the  Saint  Simonians,  and 
ending  with  A.  Comte.  France  is  drunk  with  authority,  what- 
ever one  may  say.  Here  is  a  fine  idea  that  I  find  in  Raspail : 
the  doctors  ought  to  be  magistrates  in  order  that  they  may  be  able 
to  force,  etc.,  etc' 

Writing  to  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes,  he  says  of 
George  Sand  that  she  is  'an  excellent  woman,  but  too 
angelical,  too  benedictory,''  and  again  protests  against  the 
sacrifice  of  justice  to  mercy  : — 

'Talking  of  justice,  I  have  recently  paid  my  lord  Levy  three 
thousand  francs  out  of  my  own  pocket  for  the  Demiei-es 
Chaiisons ;  and  the  said  child  of  Jacob  has  just  been  decorated. 
God  of  the  Jews,  thou  conquerest ! 

'  You  will  think  this  very  childish,  but  I  have  taken  off  my 
Star,  I  no  longer  wear  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  and 
I  have  begged  one  of  our  common  friends  to  invite  me  to  dinner 
with  Jules  Simon  in  order  that  I  may  howl  at  His  Excellency 
over  this  matter.  And  this  will  come  to  pass.  I  always  keep 
the  promises  that  I  make  to  myself.' 

To  George  Sand,  from  Croisset : — 

'  I  am  not  like  M.  de  Vigny ;  I  do  not  like  the  sound  of  the 
horn  from  the  depths  of  the  wood.  For  two  hours  an  idiot 
planted  in  the  island  opposite  me  has  been  doing  me  to  death 
with  his  instrument.  The  abominable  wretch  spoils  the  sun- 
shine for  me,  and  deprives  me  of  the  pleasure  of  tasting  the 
summer,  for  it  is  glorious  weather  now,  but  I  am  bursting  with 


286  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

rage.  However,  I  would  like  to  have  a  little  chat  with  you, 
dear  master. 

'  And  first,  all  hail  !  your  seventieth  year,  which  seems  to  me 
more  robust  than  the  twentieth  of  another !  What  an  Herculean 
constitution  you  have  !  To  bathe  in  a  frozen  river  is  a  proof  of 
strength  which  simply  flattens  me,  and  is  the  indication  of  a 
fund  of  health  comforting  to  your  friends.  Live  long !  Take 
case  of  yourself  for  the  sake  of  your  dear  little  girls,  for  good 
Maurice,  for  me  too,  for  everybody,  and  I  would  add  for  litera- 
ture, were  I  not  afraid  of  your  proud  disdain. 

*  There  now  !  Good  !  the  horn  again.  It 's  maddening.  I 
long  to  go  and  fetch  the  policeman. 

'  No,  I  do  not  share  your  disdain,  and  I  am  perfectly  ignorant 
of  what  you  call  "  the  pleasure  of  doing  nothing."  As  soon  as 
I  have  no  longer  a  book  on  hand,  or  am  not  thinking  of  writing 
one,  I  am  seized  by  a  boredom  which  makes  me  shout.  In  a 
word,  life  seems  to  me  tolerable  only  when  one  juggles  it  away. 
Or  perhaps  one  should  give  one's  self  up  to  disorderly  pleasures 
.  .  .  and  then ! 

' .  .  .  He  seems  to  be  quieting  down.     I  breathe  again.' 

On  another  occasion  Flaubert  begs  a  friend  to  travel  with 
him,  because  he  was  so  bored  by  having  nothing  to  do  alone 
in  the  carriage ;  '  the  other  passengers  think  there  is  a  dog 
in  trouble  in  the  train,  but  it  is  only  M.  Gustave  Flaubert 
relieving  his  feelings."* 

The  necessity  of  submitting  '  The  Candidate '  to  the  censure 
elicited  the  following  axiom  :  '  All  governments  hate  litera- 
ture, power  does  not  like  another  power."" 

'  The  Candidate  "*  failed  on  the  stage ;  '  it  was  a  frost,  if 
ever  there  was  one"'^  Flaubert  was  really  much  cast  down, 
but  wrote  to  George  Sand  after  the  first  representation : — 

'  As  for  Cruchard,  he  is  calm,  very  calm  !  He  had  dined  well 
before  the  performance,  and  supped  still  better  afterwards. 
Menu,  two  dozen  Ostend  oysters,  a  bottle  of  champagne  iced, 
three  slices  of  roast  beef,  a  truffle  salad,  coffee,  and  brandy 
thereto.     His  religion  and  his  stomach  sustain  Cruchard.' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  287 

He  was  still  more  annoyed  by  the  critics  than  by  failure. 

'  Villemessant  reproaches  me  for  not  having  got  myself  killed 
by  the  Prussians.  It  is  enough  to  make  one  sick.  And  you 
wish  me  not  to  notice  human  folly,  and  to  deprive  myself  of  the 
pleasure  of  depicting  it.  But  the  comic  is  the  sohtary  consola- 
tion of  virtue.' 

The  excitement  of  bringing  out  '  The  Candidate '  told 
severely  on  Flaubert's  nerves,  and  he  consulted  a  doctor,  who 
recommended  a  Swiss  town. 

'  Did  I  tell  you  that  I  should  go  this  summer  and  set  up  my 
nerves  at  Saint  Moritz .''  It  is  in  accordance  with  the  advice  of 
Dr.  Hardy,  who  calls  me  an  hysterical  old  woman,  "  Doctor," 
I  said  to  him,  "  you  are  perfectly  right." 

'  The  good  folk  of  Rouen,  my  brother  included,  spoke  to  me 
of  the  failure  of  "The  Candidate  "  in  a  hushed  voice,  and  with  an 
air  of  contrition,  as  if  I  had  gone  through  the  assizes  for  a  for- 
gery. Not  to  succeed  is  a  crime,  and  success  is  the  criterion  of 
good.  I  think  this  grotesque  to  the  last  degree.  Explain  to  me 
why  mattresses  are  spread  under  some  falls,  and  thorns  under 
others  ?  (This  particular  letter  is  signed  R.  P.  Cruchard.  More 
Cruchard  than  ever.)  I  feel  myself  doting,  flabby,  worn-out, 
sheik,  deliquescent,  lastly  calm  and  controlled,  which  is  perhaps 
the  concluding  term  of  decadence.' 

Flaubert's  last  work  was  begun  early  in  August  1874. 
On  the  28th  of  July  he  writes  to  Guy  de  Maupassant :  '  I 
shall  be  back  at  Croisset  on  Friday  evening,  and  on  Saturday 
I  begin  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet !  I  tremble  before  it,  as  on  the 
eve  of  embarking  on  a  journey  round  the  world.'  Six  years 
later  the  book  was  still  being  written ;  and  no  wonder  ! 
Flaubert  read  and  annotated  fifteen  hundred  volumes  in 
order  to  produce  the  four  hundred  octavo  pages  which  he 
had  all  but  completed  when  he  died.  The  hard  work  told 
on  him  severely  from  the  beginning;  and  then  he  was  no 


288  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

longer  free  from  pecuniary  anxieties  after  his  generous  emu- 
lation of  King  Lear. 

In  the  spring  of  1875  he  says  to  George  Sand  : — 

'  The  reason  why  I  so  rarely  write  to  you  now,  is  that  I  do  not 
wish  to  bore  you  with  my  complaints  ;  for  nobody  has  a  stronger 
conviction  than  myself  of  my  own  insupportability.  .  .  . 

' .  .  .  I  send  kisses  to  you  all,  above  all  to  you,  dear  master, 
so  great,  so  strong,  so  gentle.  Your  Cruchard  more  and  more 
cracked,  if  cracked  is  the  right  word,  for  I  feel  my  contents 
escaping.' 

Writing  to  Zola  in  August  1875  he  says,  after  announcing 
the  commercial  failure  of  M.  Commanville,  but  not  mention- 
ing his  own  generosity  : — 

*  My  existence  is  now  completely  upset ;  I  shall  always  have 
something  to  live  upon,  but  imder  other  conditions.  As  for 
literature  I  am  incapable  of  any  work.  In  about  four  months 
(during  which  we  have  been  in  hellish  anxiety)  I  have  written 
fourteen  pages  in  all,  and  those  bad  ones.  My  poor  brain  will 
not  stand  such  a  blow.     That  seems  to  me  quite  clear.' 

But  in  three  months'  time  he  was  at  work  on  the  short 
stories. 

His  last  letter  to  George  Sand  was  written  in  the  year  of 
her  death,  but  is  only  dated  '  Sunday  evening,  1876  "* ;  it  is 
chiefly  concerned  with  a  review  of  her  story  Flamarande. 
He  expresses  strongly  in  it  one  of  his  favourite  axioms  : — 

'  As  for  letting  my  personal  opinion  of  the  characters  that  I 
bring  on  to  the  stage  be  seen ;  no,  no — a  thousand  times  no  !  I 
do  not  recognise  my  right  to  do  so.  If  the  reader  does  not 
draw  from  a  book  the  morality  that  ought  to  be  in  it,  the  reason 
is  that  the  reader  is  a  fool,  or  the  book  is  false  in  the  point  of 
accuracy.  For  the  moment  a  thing  is  true  it  is  good.  Obscene 
books  even  are  only  immoral  because  they  want  truth.  Things 
do  not  go  on  in  that  way  in  life.  And  observe  that  I  hate  what 
it  is  agreed  to  call  realism,  although  I  am  made  one  of  its 
pontiffs ;  settle  that  for  me.' 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  289 

On  the  19th  of  June  1876,  writing  to  Madame  Roger  des 
Genettes,  he  says,  after  describing  the  plot  of  '  A  Simple 
Soul '  :— 

'  The  story  is  by  no  means  ironical^  as  you  suppose,  but  on  the 
contrary  very  serious,  and  very  sad.  I  wish  to  stir  compassion, 
to  make  sensitive  souls  weep,  being  one  myself.  Alas  !  Yes  ! 
last  Saturday  at  the  funeral  of  George  Sand  I  broke  out  into 
sobs,  on  kissing  little  Aurora,  and  then  on  seeing  the  coffin  of 
my  old  friend.' 


CHAPTER   XX 

LETTERS    TO    GUY    DE    MAUPASSANT    AND    OTHERS 

In  October  of  this  year  Flaubert  had  a  great  treat,  a  visit 
from  his  old  friend  Mrs.  Tennant,  the  Gertrude  Collier  of  the 
Trouville  days ;  and  he  continued  to  correspond  with  her  to 
the  end  of  his  life.     Afterwards  he  wrote  to  her  : — 

'  How  I  long  to  see  you !  What  a  number  of  things  I 
should  have  to  tell  you,  sitting  alone  with  you  over  the  fire  ! 
Do  you  know  what  I  call  you  in  my  innermost  heart,  when  I 
think  of  you  (and  it  often  happens) .''      I  call  you  "my  youth."  ' 

Madame  Roger  des  Genettes  was  his  correspondent-in- 
chief  at  this  time ;  but  his  letters  even  to  her  have  less  and 
less  of  the  old  personal  touch  ;  there  is  a  great  deal  more  of 
criticism  upon  contemporary  literature,  and  less  of  the  old 
humour.  Occasionally  we  have  such  outbursts  as :  '  The 
inanity  of  mankind  does  actually  so  overwhelm  me  that  I 
feel  like  a  fly  with  the  Himalayas  on  its  back.  Never  mind. 
I  will  try  to  spue  out  my  venom  into  my  book.  This  hope 
comforts  me.' 

Many  of  the  letters  are  filled  with  requests  for  detailed 
information  on  some  geographical  or  historical  fact  likely  to 
be  useful  to  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet ;  Flauberfs  sensitiveness  of 
conscience  on  the  question  of  accuracy  increasing  rather  than 
diminishing  with  age.  And  meanwhile  the  '  indignation  of 
St.  Polycarp '  also  increased  rather  than  diminished : — 

*  Anacharsis  Cloots  used  to  say  :  "I  belong  to  the  party  of  in- 
dignation."    I  am  getting  to  resemble  him  ;  don't  you  think  so  ? 

290 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  291 

He  was  for  the  rest  a  queer  fellow,  and  I  have  a  weakness  for 
him.  When  he  was  guillotined  he  wished  to  pass  after  his  com- 
panions, in  order  to  have  time  to  confirm  certain  principles ! 
What  principles  ?  I  have  no  idea  whatever,  but  I  admire  this 
fancy. 

'  Here  are  two  verses  recently  brought  into  the  world  by  an 
Academician  of  Rouen,  which  I  think  splendid  : 

"  We  always  are  happy,  to  deny  it 's  no  good. 
When  we  see  ourselves  first  in  our  own  neighbourhood."  ' 

The  author  of  this  beautiful  couplet  was  no  less  a  person 
than  M.  Decorde,  the  poetical  member  of  the  Town  Council 
of  Rouen,  who  found  that  Louis  Bouilhet  was  not  great 
enough  to  be  honoured  with  a  monument.  Flaubert  says, 
writing  to  Guy  de  Maupassant : — 

'  What  do  you  say  of  these  two  verses,  my  boy  ?  I  beg  you 
to  meditate  upon  them  carefully ;  then  to  declaim  them  with 
the  appropriate  emphasis,  and  you  will  spend  a  good  quarter  of 
an  hour.' 

The  rest  of  this  same  letter  contains  some  good  advice : — 

'You  complain  of  women  who  are  "monotonous."  The 
remedy  is  very  simple, — do  without  them.  "  Events  have  no 
variety."  That  is  a  realistic  complaint,  and  besides,  what  do  you 
know  about  it .''  Perhaps  you  might  look  into  them  a  little 
more  closely.  Have  you  ever  believed  in  the  existence  of 
things  ?  Is  not  everything  an  illusion  }  There  is  nothing  true 
but  "  relations,"  that  is  to  say  the  fashion  in  which  we  perceive 
objects.  "Vices  are  shabby,"  but  everything  is  shabby! 
"  There  are  not  sufficient  turns  of  phrase."  Look  for  them  and 
you  will  find  them. 

'  Lastly,  my  dear  friend,  you  have  to  me  the  air  of  being 
thoroughly  bored,  and  your  boredom  afflicts  me,  for  you  might 
employ  your  time  more  profitably.  You  must — do  you  hear, 
young  man? — you  imist  work  more  than  that.  I  begin  to  have  an 
idea  that  you  are  not  very  seriously  hard-handed.  Too  many 
wenches,  too  much  rowing,  too  much  exercise  !  Yes,  sir  !  The 
civilised  man  has  not  such  a  great  need  of  locomotion  as  our 


292  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

friends  the  doctors  insist.  You  were  born  to  make  verses; 
make  them.  "All  the  rest  is  vanity,"  to  begin  with,  your 
pleasures,  and  your  health ;  there — stuff  that  into  your  nut. 
Besides,  your  health  will  be  all  the  better  if  you  follow  your 
vocation.  This  remark  is  of  profound  philosophy,  or  rather 
hygiene.  .  .  . 

' ...  In  a  word,  my  dear  Guy,  beware  of  sadness.  It  is  a 
vice ;  one  takes  a  pleasure  in  being  dismal,  and  when  the  dis- 
mal fit  is  over,  as  it  has  used  up  precious  forces,  one  remains 
dulled  by  it.  Then,  one  is  sorry  for  it ;  but  it  is  too  late. 
Trust  to  the  experience  of  a  sheik  to  whom  no  extravagance  is 
strange.' 

Flaubert  was  often  ready  with  a  compliment  to  England  : — 

'  Do  you  read  the  works  of  Herbert  Spencer }  That  is  a 
man,  and  a  real  positivist !  A  rare  thing  in  France,  whatever 
people  say.  Germany  has  nothing  to  compare  to  this  thinker. 
For  the  rest  the  English  seem  to  me  enormous.  Their  attitude 
in  the  Eastern  question  has  been  superb  in  its  impudence  and 
skill.' 

Talking  of  Dupanloup,  Flaubert  says  : — 

*  His  book  upon  the  higher  studies  is  of  a  very  common 
order  of  intellect.  He  was  a  country  parson,  nothing  more. 
His  funeral  oration  upon  Lamoriciere  seems  to  have  been 
written  by  a  bagman  turned  verger.' 

And  in  fact  in  1879  he  recovered  his  spirits  to  some 
extent ;  for  example : — 

'  And  does  not  the  funeral  of  Villemessant  (editor  of  the 
Figaro)  make  you  think  }  Embalmment,  as  if  of  a  Pharaoh,  mass 
said  by  a  bishop,  the  station  transformed  into  a  "chapelle 
ardente,"  "  and  return  of  the  ashes  "  to  Paris,  and  the  day  after, 
speech,  plumes,  music,  immense  crowd,  I  am  sure  of  it.  He 
enjoyed  "an  immense  publicity  "  :  let  us  bow  !  I  never  bowed^ 
I  never  bent  my  knee  before  that  institution. 

'  And  Pinard,  my  enemy  Pinard  (the  counsel  for  the  prosecu- 
tion in  the  action  against  the  author  of  Madame  Bovary),  the 
author  of  the  obscene  couplets  found  in  the  praying  stool  of 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  293 

Madame  Gras,  Pinard,  who  invented  Gambetta  (to  do  the 
Empire  a  good  turn), — this  excellent  M.  Pinard  communicating 
last  Sunday  at  Notre  Dame  in  the  company  of  his  grace  the 
Duke  de  Nemours  !     Farce  !  Farce  ! ' 

Again  we  find  him  joking  against  himself  in  writing  to 
Edmond  de  Goncourt : — 

'  Here  is  my  statement.  My  leg  is  better  (he  had  broken 
it) ;  however,  it  swells  every  evening,  I  can  hardly  walk  more 
than  a  hundred  yards,  and  I  have  to  wear  a  bandage  round  my 
ankles. 

'  Further,  I  have  had  one  of  my  last  grinders  pulled  out. 

'  Further,  I  have  had  lumbago. 

'  Further,  a  stye  in  my  eye. 

'And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  since  yesterday  I  rejoice  in  a  pimple 
plump  in  the  middle  of  my  countenance.  Apart  from  all  that  I 
am  very  well.' 

The  reading  for  Bouvard  et  Pkuchet  as  a  rule  proved  irri- 
tating : — 

'  Cups  of  bitterness  are  not  grudged  to  your  old  friend,  and 
I  am  reading  stupid  or  rather  stupefying  things  ;  the  religious 
tracts  of  Monseigneur  de  Segur,  the  lucubrations  of  Pere 
Huguet,  Jesuit,  Bagnevalt  de  Puchesne,  and  that  excellent  M. 
Nicholas,  who  takes  Wolfenhuttel  for  a  man  (because  of  the 
Wolfenbiittel  fragments),  and  consequently  he  thunders  against 
Wolfenbiittel.  Modern  religion  is  something  ineffable  decidedly, 
and  Parfait  in  his  Arsenal  of  Devotion  has  only  skimmed  the 
matter.  In  the  Manual  entitled  "  Pious  Domestics"  what  do 
you  say  to  this  title  for  a  chapter  :  Of  modesty  during  great  Heat  ? 
Then  advice  to  maids  not  to  take  service  with  actors,  innkeepers, 
and  vendors  of  obscene  engravings  !  Those  are  some  flowers ; 
and  the  idiots  declaim  against  Voltaire,  who  is  a  spiritualist,  and 
Renan,  who  is  a  Christian.  O  inanity  !  O  infinitude  !  I  shall 
have  some  trouble  in  my  ninth  chapter.  Religion,  to  keep  my 
balance.     My  pious  readings  would  make  a  sinner  of  a  saint.' 

Apparently  Madame  Roger  des  Genettes,  to  whom  these 


294  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

remarks  were  addressed,  did  not  find  them  altogether  to  her 
taste,  for  in  the  next  letter  to  her  there  is  an  explanation  : — 

'  You  did  not  understand  the  spirit  of  my  indignation  :  I  am 
not  astounded  at  people  who  try  to  explain  the  incomprehen- 
sible, but  at  those  who  think  they  have  found  its  explanation, 
those  who  have  "  le  bon  Dieu,"  or  rather  "  le  non  Dieu,"  in 
their  pockets.  Certainly — yes  !  all  dogmatism  exasperates  me. 
In  short,  Materialism  and  Spiritualism  seem  to  me  two  impertin- 
ences. 

'  Recently,  after  having  read  no  small  number  of  Catholic 
books,  I  took  up  the  philosophy  of  Lefebvre — "  the  last  word  of 
science "  ;  it  is  only  fit  to  be  thrown  into  the  same  latrines. 
That  is  my  opinion.  All  ignorant  creatures,  all  humbugs,  all 
idiots,  who  never  see  more  than  one  half  of  a  whole  :  and  I  have 
re-read  (for  the  third  time  in  my  life)  all  Spinoza.  That 
"  atheist "  was  in  my  opinion  the  most  religious  of  men,  because 
he  admitted  nothing  but  God.  But  just  try  and  make  our 
friends  the  ecclesiastics  and  the  disciples  of  Cousin  understand 
that ! ' 

Guy  de  Maupassant  having  published  some  verses  in  a 
periodical  was  in  danger  of  being  prosecuted  for  immorality 
before  the  tribunal  of  Etampes,  and  further  of  losing  the 
Government  clerkship  which  he  held.  Flaubert  was  at  once 
ready  with  advice,  and  as  usual,  when  any  person"'s  business 
but  his  own  was  in  question,  showed  no  less  activity  than 
skill  in  manipulating  the  different  personages,  whose  influence 
was  likely  to  be  useful  in  diverting  the  calamity  from  the 
devoted  head  of  his  young  friend.  Among  other  things,  he 
wrote  him  a  letter,  with  leave  to  publish  it  in  the  Gaulois, 
which  as  it  incidentally  deals  with  the  whole  question  of  the 
obscene  in  literature,  is  worth  quoting  at  length : — 

'Croisset,'  February  19th,  1880, 

'  My  dear  good  fellow, — Then  it  is  true  ?  At  first  I  thought 
it  was  a  joke  !     But  no.      I  bend.     Well,  they  are  nice  people 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  295 

at  Etampes.  Are  we  going  to  be  subject  to  all  the  tribunals  in 
French  territory,  the  colonies  included  ?  How  happens  it  that 
a  piece  of  verse,  formerly  inserted  in  a  Parisian  periodical  which 
no  longer  exists,  is  prosecuted  on  being  reproduced  in  a  provin- 
cial journal,  to  which  you  probably  never  granted  permission, 
and  of  whose  existence  you  were  doubtless  ignorant  ?  To  what 
are  we  forced  now  ?  What  must  one  write  ?  How  must  one 
publish  ?     In  what  a  Bceotia  do  we  live  ? 

*  Accused  of"  an  outrage  to  morals  and  public  morality," — two 
amiable  synonyms,  which  form  two  counts  in  the  accusation  !  I 
had  a  third  outrage  laid  to  my  account,  "  and  religious  morality," 
when  I  appeared  before  the  eighth  Chamber  with  Madame 
Bovary, — an  action  which  proved  a  gigantic  advertisement  for 
me,  and  to  which  I  attribute  three-fourths  of  my  success. 

'  In  short,  I  can't  understand  it  at  all !  Are  you  the  victim  of 
some  personal  grudge  ?  There  is  something  inexplicable 
beneath  it  all.  Are  they  paid  to  debase  the  Republic  as  cur- 
rency by  making  contempt  and  ridicule  rain  upon  it  ?  I  believe 
so. 

'  That  you  should  be  prosecuted  for  a  political  article,  good ; 
although  I  defy  all  the  courts  of  justice  to  show  me  the  practical 
utility  of  it.  But  for  verses,  for  literature — no  ;  that  is  too  strong. 

'  They  will  reply  to  you  that  your  poetry  has  obscene  tenden- 
cies !  With  the  theory  of  tendencies  one  might  have  a  sheep 
guillotined  for  dreaming  of  mutton.  We  should  come  to  a 
definite  understanding  about  this  question  of  morality  in  the 
State.  What  is  beautiful  is  moral, — there  is  the  whole  thing,  and 
nothing  more. 

*  Poetry,  like  the  sun,  gilds  the  dunghill.  So  much  the  worse 
for  those  who  do  not  see  it.  You  have  treated  a  commonplace 
to  perfection,  and  you  deserve  laudation  instead  of  deserving  a 
fine  and  inprisonment. 

' "  The  whole  talent  of  an  author,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  consists 
in  defining  well,  and  painting  well."  You  have  defined  and 
painted  well.  What  more  does  one  want  }  "But  the  subject," 
Prudhomme  will  object,  "the  subject,  sir  !  Two  lovers.  A  wash- 
tub  !  The  bank  of  a  river.  You  should  have  taken  a  waggish 
tone,  treated  it  more  delicately,  with  more  subtlety,  marked  it 


296  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

in  passing  with  a  point  of  elegance,  and  made  a  venerable 
ecclesiastic  or  a  good  doctor  come  on  to  the  scene  at  the  end, 
and  deliver  himself  of  a  lecture  upon  the  dangers  of  love.  In  a 
word,  your  story  invites  to  the  union  of  sexes.     Ah  !  " 

'  In  the  first  place,  it  does  not  invite,  and  even  if  it  were  so, 
in  this  time  of  amorous  refinements,  it  is  not  a  bad  thing  to 
preach  the  worship  of  women.  Your  poor  lovers  do  not  even 
commit  an  adulteiy  !  They  are  free,  both  of  them,  "  without 
obligations  to  anybody."  Struggle  as  you  may,  the  party  of 
order  will  find  arguments.     Be  resigned. 

'  But  denounce,  in  order  that  they  may  be  suppressed,  all  the 
Greek  and  Roman  classics  without  exception,  from  Aristophanes 
to  Horace  the  good  and  Virgil  the  tender.  Then,  among 
foreign  authors,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Byron,  Cervantes. 
Among  ourselves,  Rabelais,  "from  whom  French  literature 
springs,"  according  to  Chateaubriand,  whose  masterpiece  turns 
upon  an  incest ;  and  then  Moliere  (see  the  rage  of  Bossuet 
against  him) ;  the  great  Corneille,  the  motive  of  his  Theodora  is 
prostitution ;  and  further,  La  Fontaine,  and  Voltaire,  and  Rous- 
seau, etc.,  and  the  fairy  tales  of  Perrault !  What  is  the  subject 
of  Peau  d'ane !  and  where  does  the  fourth  act  of  Le  Koi  s  amuse 
take  place .-' 

'  After  that  it  will  be  necessary  to  suppress  the  history  books, 
which  soil  the  imagination.     I  choke  with  indignation. 

'  (Who  will  get  a  surprise .''  Friend  Bardoux !  He  whose 
enthusiasm  on  reading  your  poem  was  so  great  that  he  wished 
to  make  your  acquaintance,  and  soon  after  placed  you  in  his 
office.     Justice  treats  her  proteges  well !) 

'And  that  excellent  Voltaire  (not  the  man,  the  periodical) 
which  was  joking  me  genteelly  the  other  day  on  the  bee  in  my 
bonnet,  my  belief  in  the  hatred  of  literature  !  It  is  the  Voltaire 
that  is  mistaken.  More  than  ever  I  believe  in  the  unconscious 
hatred  of  style.  When  one  writes  well,  one  has  two  enemies  to 
face :  first  the  public,  because  style  forces  it  to  think,  obliges  it 
to  work ;  second,  the  government,  because  it  feels  a  force  in  us, 
and  power  loves  not  another  power. 

'  Government  may  change,  monarchy,  empire,  republic,  it 
matters  little.  The  official  aesthetics  never  change.  In  virtue 
of  their  place,  its  agents — administi-ators  and  magistrates — have 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  297 

the  monoply  of  taste  (see  the  terms  of  my  acquittal).  They 
know  how  one  ought  to  write,  their  rhetoric  is  infalHble,  and 
they  possess  the  means  of  convincing. 

'You  were  rising  to  Olympus,  your  face  flooded  with  sun- 
beams, your  heart  full  of  hope,  breathing  in  the  beautiful,  the 
divine,  half  into  lightsome  heaven — and  a  pohceman's  paw  flings 
you  back  into  the  gutter !  You  were  conversing  with  the  Muse, 
and  you  are  taken  for  one  of  those  who  corrupt  little  girls.  All 
perfumed  with  the  waves  of  Permessus,  you  will  be  confounded 
with  those  gentlemen  who  haunt  urinals  for  pleasure. 

'  And  you  will  take  your  seat,  my  young  friend,  on  the  felon's 
bench,  and  you  will  hear  an  individual  read  your  verses  (not 
without  faults  of  prosody),  and  read  them  again,  laying  stress 
upon  particular  words  to  which  he  will  give  a  distorted  signifi- 
cance. He  will  repeat  some  of  them  several  times,  like  citizen 
Pinard  :  "  The  leg,  gentlemen,  the  leg,"  etc. 

'  While  your  advocate  will  make  a  sign  to  you  to  control  your- 
self— a  word  might  ruin  you, — you  will  vaguely  feel  behind  you 
all  the  police  force,  all  the  army,  all  the  power  of  the  public 
weighing  on  your  brain  with  an  incalculable  weight ;  then  there 
will  mount  into  your  heart  a  hatred  which  you  do  not  suspect, 
with  plans  of  vengeance,  arrested  at  once  by  pride. 

'  But,  once  again,  it  is  not  possible.  You  will  not  be  pro- 
secuted, you  will  not  be  sentenced.  There  is  a  misunderstanding, 
a  mistake,  something  or  other.  The  keeper  of  the  seals  will 
intervene. 

'We  are  no  longer  in  the  glorious  days  of  M.  de  Villele.  And 
yet,  who  knows  ?  The  world  has  its  limits,  but  human  inanity 
has  no  bounds.' 

In  this  letter  there  is  one  of  Flauberfs  curious  slips  of 
memory  ;  it  was  not  the  eighth  but  the  sixth  court  before 
which  he  appeared. 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  from  the  following  letter  that  the 
clouds  did  not  settle  down  unbroken  upon  Flauberfs  closing 
days,  and  that  he  found  in  Guy  de  Maupassant  something  of 
the  outlet  for  his  tenderness,  which  his  older  friends  had 
given  him  : — 


298  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  My  dear  good  fellow, — I  do  not  yet  know  on  what  day 
Goncourt,  Zola,  A.  Daudet,  and  Chai-pentier  will  come  here  to 
lunch,  dine,  and  perhaps  sleep.  This  very  evening  they  are  to 
come  to  a  decision,  and  I  shall  know  on  Friday.  I  think  Monday 
will  be  the  day  on  which  I  shall  receive  them.  Then,  if  your  eye 
permits  it,  transport  your  person  to  one  of  the  said  "cocos," 
ascertain  the  date  of  their  departure,  and  come  with  them. 

'  Supposing  all  to  spend  Monday  night  at  Croisset,  as  I  have 
only  four  beds  to  offer,  you  will  take  that  of  the  ladies' -maid, 
now  absent. 

'  Comment :  so  many  inanities  and  improbabilities  have  come 
upon  me  in  connection  with  your  illness,  that  I  should  be  much 
relieved  for  my  own  part,  for  my  own  personal  satisfaction,  to 
have  you  examined  by  my  doctor  Fortin,  a  mere  "officier  de 
sante,''  whom  I  consider  very  good, 

'  Another  observation  :  if  you  have  not  the  coin  to  make  the 
journey,  I  have  a  fine  double  louis  at  your  service.  A  refusal 
from  delicacy  would  be  utter  vulgarity  in  dealing  with  me. 

'  Last  string  :  Jules  Lemaitre,  to  whom  I  have  promised  your 
recommendation  to  Graziani,  will  present  himself  at  your  office. 
He  has  talent,  and  is  a  real  "  literary  man,"  rara  avis,  to  whom 
a  bigger  cage  should  be  given  than  Havre. 

'  Perhaps  he  will  come  to  Croisset  on  Monday ;  and  as  it  is  my 
intention  to  make  you  all  drunk,  I  have  invited  Fortin  to  lavish 
his  cares  on  the  sick. 

'  The  festival  will  miss  some  splendour  if  I  do  not  have  my 
disciple. — Your  old  friend.' 

Two  later  letters  to  the  same  person  illustrate  Flaubert"'s 
method  in  working  up  Bouvard  et  Peaichet,  and  the  latter 
one  incidentally  indicates  the  point  of  view  from  which  that 
work  should  be  read  : — 

'  I  have  received  Baudry's  letter,  which  answers  none  of  my 
questions.  (I  am  beginning  to  ask  myself  whether  I  am  mad  !) 
But  to  make  up  for  that  he  gives  me  advice  upon  the  art  of 
writing.  "  Why  do  you  concern  yourself  with  Botany,  which 
you  don't  know  ?  You  expose  yourself  to  a  mass  of  errors,  which 
will  be  none  the  less  absurd  for  being  involuntary.     There  is  no 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  299 

good  comedy  in  this  line  of  ideas  except  that  which  is  premedi- 
tated ;  that  which  the  other  has  made  in  spite  of  himself  is  comic 
all  the  same,  but  quite  in  another  way  ! "  etc. 

'  Savour  the  daintiness  of  this  raillery.     Attic,  is  it  not  } 

'  And  he  reproaches  me  with  ranking  the  tuberoses  among  the 
liliaceae,  when  I  have  exerted  myself  to  tell  him  that  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau  classed  them  thus,  and  he  informs  me  that 
"  in  roses  the  ovary  is  hidden  beneath  the  petals,"  the  very  phrase 
of  the  letter  which  I  sent  him. 

'  I  replied,  that  I  begged  his  pardon,  at  the  same  time  de- 
manding a  little  indulgence.  Never  mind.  To  believe  me 
a  prion  incapable  of  giving  a  piece  of  information  supplied  by 
others,  and,  secondly,  to  judge  me  charlatan  enough  to  raise  a 
laugh  at  my  own  expense,  is  pretty  hard.  Study  this  fact ;  it 
seems  to  me  big  with  pyschology  ;  and  I  return  to  my  hobby  : 
"the  hatred  of  literature."  You  have  read  1500  volumes  to 
write  one.  That  does  not  matter.  From  the  moment  that  you 
know  how  to  write,  you  are  not  serious,  and  your  friends  treat 
you  like  a  street  boy.  I  do  not  conceal  the  fact  that  I  think 
this  "  wicked." 

'  I  will  get  through  with  it  all  alone,  even  if  I  have  to  spend 
six  years  over  it,  for  I  am  mad  about  it.  But  try  through  your 
professional  friends  to  unearth  me  a  botanist ;  it  would  save  me 
a  lot  of  time.  My  love  to  you  !  Your  old  friend  in  a  state  of 
exasperation  beyond  describing.' 

'  No  !  that  is  not  enough,  although  it  is  already  better.  The 
anemones  (in  the  family  of  the  ranunculacese)  without  calyx, 
very  good.  But  why  has  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  said  (in  his 
Botany),  "most  of  the  liliaceee  are  without  it"  ?  This  "most  " 
signifies  that  certain  liliaceae  want  it.  The  said  Rousseau,  not 
being  a  scientific  man,  but  an  observer  of  "nature,"  may  per- 
haps have  made  a  mistake  !  Why  and  how  ?  In  short,  I  must 
have  an  exception  to  the  rule.  I  already  have  it  with  certain 
ranunculaceae,  but,  secondly,  I  want  an  exception  to  the  excep- 
Jion,  a  piece  of  mischief  which  is  suggested  to  me  by  the  "most" 
of  the  citizen  of  Geneva. 

'  Of  course,  I  do  not  cling  to  any  particular  family,  provided 
the  plant  is  common.  .  .  .' 


300     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

The  evening  before  his  death,  Madame  Commanville 
received  a  letter  announcing  the  speedy  conclusion  of  his 
book,  and  ending  with  these  words : — 

'  I  ivas  right !  I  have  my  information  from  the  Professor  of 
Botany  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes ;  and  I  was  right,  because 
eesthetic  is  truth,  and  because  up  to  a  certain  intellectual  point 
(when  one  has  method)  one  does  not  make  mistakes,  reality  does 
not  bend  to  the  ideal,  but  confirms  it.  I  had  to  make  three 
journeys  into  different  districts  to  find  the  right  setting  for 
Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,  the  environment  peculiar  to  the  action. 
Ah,  ah  !  I  triumph — that  is  a  success,  and  I  am  flattered  by  it.' 

On  the  8th  of  May  1880,  as  Flaubert  was  dressing,  he  fell 
down  unconscious  ;  in  a  few  moments  he  was  dead  ;  and  the 
passengers  on  the  steamer  from  Rouen  to  la  Bouille  thence- 
forward looked  in  vain  for  that  queer  M,  Flaubert,  who  used 
to  stand  in  his  dressing-gown  at  the  window  of  the  old  house 
at  Croisset. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

'  BOUVARD    ET    PECUCHET  "* 

Flaubert  died  when  the  last  chapter  of  the  first  part  of  Bou- 
vard  et  Peaicliet  was  but  half  finished  ;  the  first  third  of  it 
was  already  in  its  complete  form,  and  of  the  remaining  two- 
thirds,  the  skeleton,  a  remarkably  fleshy  skeleton,  was  already 
in  existence.  The  notes  only  for  the  second  part  of  the 
book,  with  their  classification,  were  complete.  Thus  the 
work  as  it  stands  is  unfinished,  and  has  not  been  revised  by 
its  author ;  still,  the  fragment  is  all  but  perfect  in  itself,  and 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  second  part  would  have 
proved  equally  readable  with  the  first. 

Bouvard  et  Pecuchet  is  the  work  which  places  Flaubert 
among  the  gods  ;  if  he  had  never  written  that  book  he  might 
have  been  classified  as  a  writer  of  strong  but  clumsy  romances ; 
a  man  of  great  genius,  but  somehow  ineff'ective ;  a  man  who 
had  never  fomid  the  right  form  in  which  to  deliver  his  message, 
or  who  had  only  found  it  in  the  form  of  three  short  stories ; 
but  this  book  exactly  suits  his  peculiar  temperament,  his 
peculiar  powers  ;  it  is  as  individual  and  distinctive  as  Faust 
is  of  Goethe,  Frederick  the  Great  of  Carlyle,  Henri/  IV.  of 
Shakespeare,  Don  Quixote  of  Cervantes,  Pantagruel  of 
Rabelais. 

It  is  in  this  particular  that  the  really  great  writers  reveal 
themselves ;  they  write  works  which  nobody  else  could  pos- 
sibly have  written.     Their  works  may  be  unpleasing,  full  of 

301 


302  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

defects  (generally  of  excess),  more  or  less  without  form,  in- 
comprehensible to  the  general  public,  unable  to  be  squeezed 
into  the  shape  recognised  by  any  school  of  criticism,  and  yet, 
there  they  are.  Generation  after  generation  of  literary 
artists  goes  to  these  works  and  draws  some  mysterious 
strength  from  them ;  while  the  general  public  talks  of  them 
with  respect,  but  never  reads  them. 

Such  works  are  not  unfrequently  satirical  in  their  first 
intent ;  their  Avritcrs  have  studied  _^^the  literature  and  the 
men  of  their  day,  and  found  them  wanting ;  even  where  a 
criticism  is  not  stated,  it  is  often  implied.  Rabelais  and 
Cervantes,  sometimes  under  disguises,  sometimes  openly,  pour 
contempt  on  the  opinions  of  their  contemporaries ;  Shake- 
speare abounds  in  parody,  in  demonstrations  of  the  ineffective- 
ness of  self-complacent  humanity  ;  Carlyle''s  laugh  only  gives 
way  to  his  far  less  pleasing  declamation.  Again,  it  is  the 
universally  applicable  satire  that  lives ;  the  satire  which 
nevertheless  seemed  to  be  only  of  temporary  application.  All 
the  other  Greek  comic  poets  are  gone,  but  we  still  have  Ai'is- 
tophanes ;  and  yet  nothing  apparently  could  be  more  local 
than  his  jokes.  Would  Plato'^s  philosophy  have  preserved 
his  works  without  his  wit,  and  his  endless  parody  on  his  con- 
temporaries ?  Mere  learning,  accurate  reasoning,  perfection 
of  method, — none  of  these  alone  or  in  combination  are  enough 
to  insure  the  perpetuity  of  a  deeply  thoughtful  work ;  it 
seems  as  if  to  secure  immortality  the  personification  of  ideas 
is  a  first  necessity.  Ideas  change,  but  the  human  attitude 
towards  them  is  always  the  same.  Gorgias  and  Phaedrus 
will  always  live,  because  their  attitude  towards  knowledge  is 
a  permanent  attribute  of  humanity ;  there  will  always  be 
kindly,  self-complacent  old  men  believing  that  virtue  can  be 
taught,  and  willing  to  teach  it ;  there  will  always  be  ardent 
young  men  unable  to  distinguish   between  your  true  man 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  303 

and  your  windbag,  and  lost  in  admiration  of  the  last 
University  Extension  lecturer  that  they  have  encountered. 
Further,  it  is  not  your  mere  dramatist  who  lives ;  it  is  the 
dramatist  who  places  his  characters  in  connection  Avith  the 
big  subjects.  Tragedies  and  comedies  of  everyday  life,  how- 
ever well  they  may  be  written,  do  not  make  permanent  im- 
pressions ;  each  generation  makes  them  for  itself,  and  prefers 
its  own  to  any  other.  The  world  of  forgotten  plays  ! — what 
a  universe ! — from  the  authors  of  the  middle  and  new 
comedy  onwards !  And  the  novels  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, those  that  are  read  by  Tom,  Dick,  and  Sal — what  a 
limbo  for  the  twentieth  century  to  peep  into  !  Few  people 
reflect  upon  the  vast  quantity  of  literature  that  has  practi- 
cally passed  away,  where  one  book  has  survived.  A  library 
is  an  appalling  necropolis  ;  crowded  with  the  dead,  the  dying, 
and  a  few  semi-revivable  corpses. 

The  literary  man  is  always  interested  in  studying  the 
problems  of  the  human  mind ;  the  intellectual  difficulties  of 
man  always  concern  him.  It  is  by  the  literary  man  pre- 
eminently that  permanence  is  given  to  an  author ;  and  so 
the  permanent  books  are  mostly  books  which  deal  with  man 
in  his  relation  to  the  infinite,  the  permanent,  not  the 
ephemeral  problems.  The  more  a  man  has  learned  the 
more  he  requires ;  as  his  experience  improves  his  discrimina- 
tion improves,  his  power  of  enjoyment  improves,  and  those 
who  can  in  all  ages  satisfy  his  educated  demands,  please  his 
advanced  taste,  are  the  imperishable  giants  of  literature. 

When  we  are  very  young  we  like  hymn-tunes  sung  by  our 
mother,  and  the  popular  airs  of  the  barrel-organ  ;  the  finest 
performance  by  Richter's  orchestra  of  a  symphony  of 
Beethoven  is  to  us  an  indistinguishable  medley  of  sound ; 
but,  if  we  have  the  good  fortune  to  hear  much  music,  the 
barrel-organ  becomes  unendm'able  to  us,  the  hymn  valuable 


304  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

only  for  non-musical  associations,  but  oh !  what  a  paradise 
of  delight  is  the  symphony  ! 

Thus  it  is  with  literature ;  the  student  grows  to  require 
better  and  yet  better  work,  and  to  recognise  it  when  it  is 
presented  to  him  ;  all  but  the  best  seems  trivial. 

So  strong  is  our  interest  in  the  relations  of  man  to  the 
infinite  that  we  even  read  an  allegory  into  mere  narrative. 
The  Homeric  poems  were  not  regarded  by  learned  Greeks 
as  being  only  stories  of  fighting,  or  the  celebration  of  the 
deeds  of  heroic  ancestors ;  there  were  those  who  saw  in  them 
as  many  mystic  allusions  as  have  been  discovered  in  the 
Song  of  Solomon.  Virgil  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  either  a 
saint  or  a  magician ;  and  it  would  be  impossible  to  enumer- 
ate the  works  which  deal  with  the  inner  significance  of  the 
historical  books  of  the  Hebrews.  To  the  whole  of  Dante 
there  is  a  threefold  interpretation.  No  man  has  ever  yet 
discovered  all  that  lurks  beneath  the  sui'face  of  the  second 
part  of  Faust. 

Of  books  of  this  kind  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet  is  perhaps  the 
only  one  whose  author"'s  mind  is  perfectly  open  to  us.  We 
possess  the  key,  and  know  that  we  have  to  do  with  some- 
thing more  than  a  farcical  story. 

Part  I. 

Flaubert  was  writing  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet  all  his  life.  We 
have  seen  how,  in  his  very  first  letter,  he  proposed  to  a 
school-fellow  to  write  comedies,  in  which  would  be  repeated 
all  the  silly  things  that  a  lady  who  visited  his  father''s  house 
was  in  the  habit  of  saying ;  and  his  other  letters  give  abmi- 
dant  indications  of  the  serious  view  which  he  took  of  the 
inanity  of  his  fellow-creatures.  As  early  as  1850  he  was 
contemplating  a  Dictionary  of  Accepted  Opinions. 

The  plot  of  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet  is  very  simple ;  two  clerks, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  305 

middle-aged  men  (they  are  each  delighted  to  find  that  the 
other  is  forty-seven),  meet  accidentally  and  strike  up  a  warm 
friendship.  The  most  trivial  of  coincidences  is  the  fomidation 
of  their  friendship  ;  happening  to  seat  themselves  on  the 
sam_e  bench  on  the  Boulevard  Bourbon,  they  take  off  their 
hats,  and  discover  that  they  both  have  the  habit  of  writing 
their  names  inside  them. 

In  spite  of  their  similarity  of  tastes  the  men  soon  to  be 
united  in  the  bonds  of  warmest  friendship  are  really  dissimi- 
lar. Bouvard  is  stout,  florid,  a  widower,  fond  of  indecent 
stories,  discourses  cynically  of  women,  and  hitherto  his  chief 
friend  has  been  one  Barberou,  an  ex-bagman,  who  is  expert 
in  tricks  with  billiard-balls :  Pe'cuchet,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
thin ;  owing  to  the  extreme  length  of  his  nose,  his  face 
seems  all  profile ;  he  is  a  bachelor,  a  prig,  somewhat  nig- 
gardly, but  of  an  insatiable  curiosity,  and  up  to  this  time 
he  has  chiefly  admired  a  Professor  Dumouchel,  who  also 
claims  rank  as  an  author,  having  produced  a  memoria  technica. 

They  get  into  the  habit  of  walking  out  together,  of  visiting 
all  the  museums ;  Avhen  they  go  to  the  botanical  gardens 
they  admire  the  cedar,  because  it  was  brought  over  in  a  hat. 
At  the  library  they  would  like  to  know  the  exact  number 
of  the  volumes.  When  they  see  an  old  piece  of  furniture, 
they  regret  not  having  lived  at  the  period  when  it  was 
made,  though  they  are  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  date  of 
that  period.  In  short,  they  are  the  people  for  whom  the 
Beefeaters  at  the  Tower  of  London  and  the  vergers  of  our 
Cathedrals  provide  information.  Some  of  them  go  to  Rome, 
and  even  further. 

As  their  intellects  become  more  active,  they  develop  an 
increasing  dislike  to  office-work.  One  day  Bouvard  received 
a  letter ;  his  putative  uncle,  really  his  father,  has  died,  and 
left  him  ten  thousand  pounds  ! 


306  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

For  two  years  the  friends  waited,  and  then,  when  Pecuchet 
had  earned  his  retiring  pension  in  the  Admiralty  they  endea- 
voured to  reahse  what  had  become  the  dream  of  their  Hves. 
They  bought  a  house  and  small  estate  in  the  country 
between  Caen  and  Falaise,  in  a  village  called  ChavignoUes, 
and  there  they  settled. 

This  is  the  environment  which  Flaubert  sought  for  so 
carefully. 

On  the  first  night  of  their  arrival  in  their  new  home  their 
very  sleep  was  characteristic  :  '  Bouvard  slept  on  his  back 
with  his  mouth  open,  his  head  bare  ;  Pecuchet  on  his  right 
side,  his  knees  in  his  stomach,  coddled  in  a  cotton  night-cap, 
and  both  snored  under  the  moonbeams  that  came  in  through 
the  windows."' 

The  notables  of  the  village  were  the  Comte  de  Faverges, 
formerly  a  deputy,  whose  fatuity  was  quoted  ;  the  mayor 
M.  Foureau,  who  sold  wood,  plaster,  all  kinds  of  things ;  the 
lawyer,  M.  Marescot ;  the  doctor,  M.  Vaucorbeil ;  the  Abbe 
Jeufroy,  and  the  Widow  Bordin,  who  lived  on  her  private 
income. 

The  friends  at  once  plunged  into  gardening  and  farming ; 
with  the  results,  which  usually  wait  on  amateurs,  who  derive 
their  experience  solely  from  books,  and  embark  recklessly 
upon  experiments  suggested  by  the  last  faddist.  They  tried 
to  manufacture  liqueurs,  all  kinds  of  alimentary  preserves ; 
their  failure  led  them  to  the  conclusion  that  they  ought  to 
study  chemistry. 

In  the  person  of  the  two  friends  Flaubert  then  begins 
his  examination  of  the  popular  text-books  of  science.  His 
method  of  suggesting  criticism  and  '  the  want  of  method 
in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  ■"  is  very  well  illustrated  by 
the  following  quotation.  It  should  be  noted  that  he  does 
not  criticise  the  chemical  text-book  as  a  chemist,  but  as  a 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  307 

person  who,  wishing  to  learn  chemistry  and  consulting  a 
text-book,  finds  that  the  text-book  is  either  self-contra- 
dictory or  gives  information  which  is  after  all  no  informa- 
tion. And"  it  is  in  this  way  that  he  deals  with  all  the 
sciences  which  are  reviewed  in  this  book  :  the  satire  being 
directed  sometimes  against  the  carelessness  or  ineptitude  of 
the  authorities  ;  sometimes  against  the  attitude  of  mind  in 
which  their  statements  are  accepted  by  the  learner. 

'  In  order  to  learn  chemistry  they  procured  Regnault's  course, 
and  learned  first  that  simple  bodies  are  perhaps  compound. 

'  They  are  divided  into  metalloids  and  metals — a  distinction 
in  which  there  is  nothing  absolute,  says  the  author.  In  the 
same  way  for  acids  and  bases  ;  a  body  being  able  to  behave  like 
an  acid  or  a  base  according  to  circumstances  ! 

'  The  notation  seemed  fantastic  to  them.  The  multiple  pro- 
portions confused  Pecuchet. 

' "  Since  one  molecule  of  A,  I  suppose,  is  combined  with 
several  particles  of  B,  it  seems  to  me  that  this  molecule  must 
be  divided  into  as  many  particles  ;  but  if  it  is  divided,  it  ceases 
to  be  a  unity,  the  primordial  molecule.  In  short,  I  don't  under- 
stand it." 

'  "  Neither  do  I  !  "  said  Bouvard. 

'  And  they  had  recourse  to  a  less  difficult  work,  that  of 
Girardin,  from  which  they  acquired  the  certainty  that  ten  litres 
of  air  weigh  ten  grammes,  that  there  is  no  lead  in  lead-pencils, 
that  the  diamond  is  nothing  but  carbon. 

'  WTiat  astonished  them  above  all  is  that  the  earth  as  an 
element  has  no  existence.' 

Getting  into  difficulties  with  their  chemistry,  they  went  to 
Vaucorbeil,  the  doctor,  and  asked  for  an  explanation  of  '  the 
higher  atomicity."'  He  did  not  give  it ;  thundered  against 
the  baneful  influence  of  chemistry  upon  medical  science. 
The  sight  of  his  diagrams  suggested  to  Pecuchet  the  study 
of  anatomy  ;  he  borrowed  the  manual  of  Alexander  Lauth, 
and  learned  the  divisions  of  the  frame.     They  were  amazed 


308  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

at  the  dorsal  column,  '  which  is  sixteen  times  stronger  than 
if  the  Creator  had  made  it  straight.  Why  precisely  sixteen 
times  ? ' 

They  then  bought  a  papier-mache  model,  wKich  arrived 
from  Paris  in  a  long  coffin-like  box,  and  excited  the  curiosity 
of  the  village  ;  they  were  credited  with  the  possession  of  a 
real  corpse,  and  the  mayor  came  in  person  to  inspect,  semi- 
officially. What  'right  had  they,  not  being  physicians,  to 
be  in  possession  of  such  an  object  ?  He  wrote  to  the  Pre- 
fect. Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  derived  some  comfort  from 
reflecting  on  their  own  superiority  ;  they  yearned  to  suffer 
for  science. 

Meanwhile  the  doctor  derided  them,  but  continued  to 
lend  them  books.  They  became  interested  in  exceptional 
developments,  unusual  physiological  phenomena.  '  Why  had 
they  not  known  that  mayor  of  Angouleme,  whose  nose 
weighed  three  pounds  ?  "■ 

Anatomy  naturally  led  to  physiology ;  they  tried  experi- 
ments to  prove — '  1,  That  the  weight  of  a  man  is  decreasing 
every  minute ;  2,  that  animal  heat  is  developed  by  muscular 
contractions,  and  that  it  is  possible  by  agitating  the  thorax 
and  the  pelvian  extremities  to  raise  the  temperature  of  a 
warm  bath.' 

While  they  were  thus  engaged  in  the  wash-house,  Pecuchet 
naked  in  the  scales,  Bouvard  equally  naked  in  the  bath,  a 
strange  dog  came  in,  proved  at  first  impervious  to  blandish- 
ment, then  ran  off  with  Pecuchet''s  trousers,  which  it  sat  on. 
Eventually  it  proved  amenable,  and  was  then  used  for  experi- 
ments disapproved  of  by  the  Antivivisection  Society,  all  of 
which  failed. 

Other  similar  experiments  were  equally  unsuccessful,  and 
at  last,  having  discovered  that  Borelli  assigns  to  the  heart 
sufficient  strength  to  lift  a  weight  of  180,000  pounds,  while 


LIFE  OF  GUST  AVE  FLAUBERT  309 

Keill  estimates  it  only  at  eight  ounces,  they  came  to  the 
conchision  that  physiology  is  the  romance  of  medicine,  and 
gave  it  up. 

They  then  came  across  the  Medical  Manual  of  Raspail, 
the  clearness  of  whose  medical  doctrine  seduced  them  :  '  All 
diseases  come  from  worms.  They  spoil  the  teeth,  devour  the 
lungs,  expand  the  liver,  ravage  the  intestines,  and  produce 
noises  in  them.     The  best  cure  for  them  is  camphor.' 

(This  Raspail  was  called  in  to  the  deathbed  of  Caroline 
Flaubert.) 

Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  at  once  became  apostles  of  camphor. 
They  happened  to  cure  Madame  Bordin  of  a  small  ail- 
ment, and  from  that  time  ran  the  usual  course  of  amateur 
physicians. 

They  soon  began  to  imagine  themselves  ill ;  and  before 
long  their  ideal  was  '  Cornaro  the  Venetian  nobleman  who 
by  means  of  a  regime  attained  to  an  extreme  old  age."* 

The  study  of  hygienic  manuals  caused  them  to  wonder 
how  they  had  ever  contrived  to  live  so  long. 

'  All  meats  have  inconveniences.  The  pudding  and  the 
sausage,  the  red  herring,  the  lobster,  and  game  are  "  refrac- 
tory." The  bigger  a  fish  is,  the  more  gelatine  it  contains, 
and  consequently  the  heavier  it  is.  Vegetables  cause  acidity, 
macaroni  gives  dreams,  cheeses,  "  considered  generally,  are 
difficult  of  digestion."  A  glass  of  water  in  the  morning  is 
"  dangerous."  Each  drink  or  comestible  being  followed  by  a 
similar  warning,  or  the  words,  "  bad — beware  of  the  abuse  of 
it — does  not  suit  everybody."  Why  bad  ?  In  what  does  the 
abuse  consist  ?     How  know  if  such  a  thing  suits  you  }  ' 

What  a  problem  breakfast  is  !  They  gave  up  coffee  with 
milk  on  account  of  its  detestable  reputation,  and  then  choco- 
late, 'for  it  is  a  mass  of  indigestible  substances.''  There 
remained   tea.      '  But   nervous    persons    should    forswear    it 


310  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

entirely.*'     However,  Decker  in  the  seventeenth  century  pre- 
scribed twenty  decalitres  a  day  to  clean  out  the  pancreas. 

This  piece  of  information  shook  their  confidence  in  Morin, 
the  more  that  he  condemns  every  form  of  headdress,  hats, 
bonnets,  and  caps,  a  pretension  revolting  to  Pecuchet. 

Then  they  bought  Becquerel's  treatise,  in  which  they  saw 
that  '  the  pig  is  in  itself  a  good  form  of  food,'  '  tobacco 
perfectly  innocent,'  and  coffee  '  indispensable  to  military  men.'' 

Up  to  that  time  they  had  believed  in  the  unwholesome- 
ness  of  damp  places.  Not  at  all !  Casper  declares  them 
less  deadly  than  others.  One  does  not  bathe  in  the  sea 
without  invigorating  one's  skin.  Begin  declares  that  one 
should  jump  into  it  in  full  perspiration.  Wine  taken  neat 
after  soup  is  said  to  be  excellent  for  the  stomach.  Levy 
charges  it  with  damaging  the  teeth.  Lastly,  the  flannel 
vest,  that  safeguard,  that  protection  of  health,  that  pal- 
ladium beloved  by  Bouvard,  and  inherent  to  Pecuchet 
without  any  subterfuges  or  dread  of  adverse  opinion  what- 
ever, is  by  some  authors  pointed  at  as  dangerous  to  men  of 
a  plethoric  and  sanguine  temperament. 

What  then  is  hygiene  ? 

'  Truth  this  side  of  the  Pyrenees,  error  beyond,"  affirms 
M.  Levy,  and  Becquerel  adds  that  it  is  not  a  science. 

Then  they  ordered  for  their  dinner  oysters,  a  duck,  pork 
and  cabbages,  cream,  a  Pont-rEveque  cheese,  and  a  bottle  of 
Burgundy.  It  was  an  emancipation,  almost  a  revenge,  and 
they  derided  Cornaro  !  One  must  be  imbecile  to  let  one- 
self be  tyrannised  over  as  he  was.  What  contemptible 
baseness  to  be  always  thinking  of  lengthening  one's  life  ! 
Life  is  only  good  if  it  is  enjoyed. 

*  "  Another  piece  ?  " 
' "  Certainly." 
'  "  I  too  !  " 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  311 

'  "  To  your  health  !  " 

'  "  To  yours  !  " 

'  "  And  let  us  snap  our  fingers  at  everything  ! "  ' 

They  became  excited. 

Bouvard  announced  that  he  wanted  three  cups  of  coffee, 
even  though  he  was  not  a  military  man.  Pecuchet,  his  cap 
over  his  ears,  took  pinch  after  pinch  of  snuff  and  sneezed 
fearlessly ! 

After  this  repast  the  friends  repaired  to  the  garden  to 
take  their  coffee,  and,  as  the  evening  was  a  fine  one,  soon 
lost  themselves  in  admiration  of  the  stars  ;  this  led  them  to 
an  astronomical  discussion,  and  then  to  the  Harmonies  of 
Bernardin  de  Saint  Pierre. 

*  Harmonies  vegetable  and  ten-estrial,  aerial,  aquatic,  human, 
fraternal,  and  even  conjugal ;  everything  was  there,  not  omit- 
ting invocations  to  Venus,  the  Zephyrs,  and  the  Loves.  They 
were  lost  in  admiration  because  fish  had  fins,  birds  wings,  seeds 
a  covering,  full  of  that  philosophy  which  discovers  virtuous 
intentions  in  nature,  and  considers  her  like  a  kind  of  Saint 
Vincent  de  Paul  always  occupied  in  bestowing  benefactions  ! 

'  Then  they  admired  her  prodigies,  water-spouts,  volcanoes, 
virgin  forests,  and  they  bought  M.  Dupuy's  work  upon  the 
"  Marvels  and  Beauties  of  Nature  in  France."  Cantal  possesses 
three  of  them,  Herault  five.  Burgundy  two — no  more,  while 
Dauphine  reckons  to  itself  alone  as  many  as  fifteen  wonders.' 

From  such  studies  they  easily  passed  to  Buffon  and  Cuvier ; 
they  began  to  collect  fossils. 

'  One  afternoon,  as  they  were  turning  over  some  flints  on  the 
high  road,  the  Cure  passed,  and,  addressing  them  in  a  wheedling 
voice,  said  : 

'  "  These  gentlemen  are  interested  in  geology.     Very  good." 

'  For  he  had  a  high  opinion  of  this  science.  It  confirms  the 
authority  of  the  Scriptures  by  proving  the  deluge. 

'  Bouvard  spoke  of  coprolites,  which  are  the  petrified  excre- 
ments of  animals. 


312  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  The  Abbe  Jeufroy  seemed  surprised  at  the  fact ;  after  all, 
if  it  were  so,  it  was  a  reason  the  more  for  admiring  the  ways  of 
Providence.' 

The  news  that  an  elephant's  jaw  was  said  to  have  been 
discovered  at  Villers,  and  an  alligator  near  Port-en-Bessin 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliff,  sent  them  off  on  a  fossil-hunting 
expedition.  Their  first  unauthorised  attack  on  the  cliffs 
ended  in  a  demand  for  a  passport,  and  conflict  with  the 
local  authorities. 

'  Besides  a  passport,  they  were  in  want  of  many  things,  and, 
before  undertaking  any  further  explorations,  they  consulted  the 
Geological  Travellers'  Guide  by  Boue.  One  should  have,  first 
of  all,  one's  soldier's  haversack,  then  a  surveyor's  chain,  a  file, 
nippers,  a  compass,  and  three  hammers,  passed  into  a  belt, 
which  is  hidden  under  the  overcoat,  and  thus  "  preserves  you 
from  that  appearance  of  originality  which  should  be  avoided  on 
a  journey."  As  stick,  Pecuchet  adopted  with  full  confidence 
the  tourist's  stick,  six  feet  long  with  a  long  iron  point.  Bouvard 
preferred  an  umbrella-cane  or  polybranch  umbrella,  whose 
handle  can  be  withdrawn  in  order  to  hook  on  the  cover,  which 
is  carried  separately  in  a  little  bag.  They  did  not  forget  strong 
boots  with  gaiters ;  each  had  "  two  pairs  of  braces,  because  of 
perspiration,"  and  although  "  one  cannot  present  one's  self 
everywhere  in  a  cap,"  they  shunned  the  expense  of  "  one  of 
those  folding  hats  which  bear  the  name  of  the  hatter  Gibus, 
their  inventor." 

'  The  same  woi-k  gives  precepts  for  conduct :  "  To  know  the 
language  of  the  countries  to  be  visited  "  ;  they  knew  it.  "  To 
preserve  a  modest  behaviour"  ;  it  was  their  custom.  "  Not  to 
have  too  much  money  about  one  "  ;  nothing  simpler.  Lastly, 
to  avoid  all  kinds  of  difficulties  it  is  good  to  adopt  the  "  qualifi- 
cation of  engineer." 

'"Well,  we  will  adopt  it."  ' 

An  expedition  to  Fecamp,  though  the  travellers  were  thus 
admirably  equipped,  nearly  ended  in  disaster ;  for  Pecuchet 
discoursed  so  eloquently  of  the  possibility  of  a  sudden  cata- 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  313 

clysm,  whereby  the  shores  of  England  should  be  united  to 
those  of  France,  that  Bouvard,  who  had  eaten  nothing  all 
day,  hearing  a  rumbling  of  stones  from  the  cliff,  concluded 
that  the  period  of  the  catastrophe  had  already  arrived,  and 
fled  in  terror  along  the  shore. 

Then  they  began  the  study  of  geology. 

'  From  biographies  and  extracts  they  learnt  something  of  the 
doctrines  of  Lamarck  and  GeofFroy  Saint-Hilaire, 

'  All  that  was  contrary  to  the  received  views,  to  the  authority 
of  the  Church. 

'  Bouvard  felt  as  it  were  the  alleviation  of  a  broken  yoke. 

' "  I  should  like  to  see  now  what  answer  citizen  Jeufroy  would 
give  me  about  the  deluge  ! " 

'  They  found  him  in  his  little  garden,  where  he  was  waiting 
for  the  members  of  the  Church  Maintenance  Committee,  w^ho 
were  to  meet  immediately  to  consider  the  purchase  of  a 
chasuble. 

'"These  gentlemen  require.'^" 

'"An  explanation,  if  you  please." 

'  And  Bouvard  began : — "  What  did  these  expressions  in 
Genesis  mean,  '  The  depths  that  are  broken  up,'  and  '  the 
cataracts  of  Heaven '  }  For  a  depth  is  not  broken  up,  and 
Heaven  has  no  cataracts." 

*  The  Abbe  closed  his  eyelids,  then  replied  that  it  was  always 
necessary  to  distinguish  between  the  letter  and  the  sense. 
Things  which  are  shocking  to  you  at  first  become  regxdar  if  you 
go  to  the  bottom  of  them. 

'  "  Very  good  !  But  how  explain  the  rain  that  surpassed  the 
highest  mountains,  which  are  two  leagues  high  !  Think  of  that, 
two  leagues  !     A  thickness  of  two  leagues  of  water  !  " 

*  And  the  Mayor  coming  up  added  :  "  Deuce  take  it !  What 
a  bath!" 

' "  Admit,"  said  Bouvard,  "  that  Moses  exaggerates  like  the 
devil." 

'  The  parson  had  read  Bonald,  and  replied  : — "  I  do  not  know 
his  motives ;  doubtless  it  was  to  inspire  the  people  whom  he 
guided  with  a  wholesome  awe  !" 


314  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

' "  Lastly,  this  mass  of  water,  where  did  it  come  from  ? " 

'  "  How  should  I  know  !  The  air  was  changed  into  rain,  as 
happens  every  day." 

'  Through  the  garden  gate  they  saw  M.  Girbal  enter,  the 
Superintendent  of  Taxes,  with  Captain  Heurtaux,  a  landowner, 
and  Beljambe,  the  innkeeper,  arm-in-arm  with  Langlois,  the 
grocer,  who  walked  with  difficulty  on  account  of  his  cough. 

'  Pecuchet,  without  noticing  them,  took  up  the  woi-d  : — 

' "  Pardon  me,  M.  Jeufroy.  The  weight  of  the  atmosphere — 
science  proves  it  for  us — is  equal  to  that  of  a  mass  of  water 
which  would  make  an  envelope  of  nearly  eleven  yards  round 
the  earth.  Consequently,  if  all  the  air  fell  down  condensed 
into  a  liquid  form,  it  would  increase  the  mass  of  existing  water 
very  little.' 

'  And  the  tradesmen  opened  their  eyes  wide,  and  began  to 
listen. 

'  The  Cure  got  vexed. 

' "  Will  you  deny  that  shells  have  been  found  upon  the  moun- 
tions  }  What  put  them  there  if  it  was  not  the  deluge  .''  They 
are  not  in  the  habit,  I  suppose,  of  growing  in  the  earth  all  of 
themselves  like  carrots  !  "  and  this  joke  having  caused  the  com- 
pany to  laugh,  he  added,  pursing  up  his  lips :  "  Unless  that  is 
another  of  the  discoveries  of  science  ?  " 

'  Bouvard  wished  to  reply  by  the  upheaval  of  mountains,  the 
theory  of  Elie  de  Beaumont. 

'  "  Not  of  my  acquaintance  !  "  replied  the  Abbe. 

'  Foreau  hastened  to  say  :  "  He  comes  from  Caen.  I  saw  him 
once  at  the  Prefecture." 

"'But  if  your  deluge,"  resumed  Bouvard,  "had  transported 
the  shells,  we  should  find  them  broken  on  the  surface,  and  not 
at  depths  of  sometimes  more  than  nine  hundred  feet." 

'  The  priest  took  refuge  in  the  veracity  of  the  Scriptures,  the 
traditions  of  the  human  race,  and  the  animals  discovered  in  ice 
in  Siberia. 

' "  That  does  not  prove  that  men  lived  at  the  same  time  as 
they."   The  earth,  according  to  Pecuchet,  was  considerably  older. 

'  "  The  delta  of  the  Mississippi  goes  back  to  tens  of  thousands 
of  years.  The  actual  epoch  is  at  least  a  hundred  thousand." 
Manetho's  lists  .  .  . 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  315 

'  The  Comte  de  Faverges  advanced. 

'  All  were  silent  on  his  aiTival. 

'  "  Go  on,  pray !     What  were  you  saying  ?  " 

'  "These  gentlemen  were  finding  fault  with  me,"  replied  the 
Abbe. 

'"About  what?" 

'"About  the  Holy  Scriptures,  my  lord." 

'  Bouvard  at  once  alleged  that  they  had  a  i-ight  to  discuss 
religion  as  geologists. 

'"Take  care,"  said  the  count;  "you  know  the  saying,  my 
dear  sir — a  little  science  leads  from  it,  a  great  deal  brings  back 
to  it."  And  in  a  tone  at  once  superior  and  paternal :  "  Believe 
you  will  come  back  to  it !     You  will  come  back  \"  ' 

And  so  the  conversation  proceeded ;  attack  and  defence 
being  alike  conducted  inadequately. 

Tired  of  geology,  the  friends  took  to  simply  enjoying  the 
country ;  one  day,  feeling  thirst  after  a  long  walk,  they  went 
into  a  public-house,  where  they  bought  an  old  oak  chest,  and 
engaged  the  young  servant  as  a  subsidiary  domestic,  embark- 
ing in  both  speculations,  to  some  extent,  on  the  recommen- 
dation of  one  Gorju,  a  vagabond  joiner,  whose  acquaintance 
they  had  previously  made. 

'  Six  months  later  they  had  become  antiquarians,  and  their 
house  was  like  a  museum.'' 

Among  the  obj  ects  which  they  cherished  were : — 

'Two  coco-nuts  that  had  belonged  to  Pecuchet  from  his 
youth  up,  an  earthenware  barrel,  on  which  a  peasant  rode. 
Then  in  a  straw  basket  there  was  a  farthing  which  had  been 
brought  up  by  a  duck. 

'  In  front  of  the  bookcase  stood  a  shell  table  with  plush  orna- 
ments. Its  cover  supported  a  cat  holding  a  mouse  in  its  maw 
— a  petrifaction  from  Saint-Allyre,  a  work-box  also  in  shells,  and 
on  this  box  a  decanter  of  brandy  contained  a  bon-chretie7i  pear.' 

The  rest  of  the  collection  was  to  match,  including  a 
butter-pot,  bearing  in  white  letters  on  a  chocolate  ground  : 


316  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Made  in  the  presence  of  His  Royal  Highness  the  Duke  of 
Angouleme  at  Noron,  October  3rd,  184n.'' 

Archaeology  naturally  led  to  architecture ;  they  visited 
cathedrals,  learnt  to  recognise  and  protest  against  '  the  de- 
based '  in  style ;  from  the  cathedrals  the  step  to  castles  and 
manor-houses  was  not  a  long  one,  and  then  in  due  sequence 
came  local  traditions  and  Celtic  remains. 

Meanwhile  their  neighbour,  Madame  Bordin,  a  keen 
woman  of  business,  with  a  Norman's  hunger  for  land, 
courted  them,  Bouvard  especially,  whose  weakness  for  the 
sex  she  proposed  to  turn  to  account.  She  and  others  visited 
the  museum,  and  were  edified  with  the  spectacle  of  Bouvard 
'  doing  a  monk  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  an  attitude  of  prayer. "* 

Such  respectable  studies  won  the  favour  of  the  Count  him- 
self, who  indicated  the  existence  of  a  holy-water  basin,  half- 
buried  in  the  grass  from  time  immemorial,  behind  the  wall 
of  the  cemetery ;  this,  on  being  exhumed,  was  pronounced 
triumphantly  to  be  a  '  druidical  bowl  "■  by  an  authority  to 
whom  they  appealed. 

Stimulated  by  success,  they  plunged  more  and  more  deeply 
into  Celtic  archaeology  ;  and  eventually  transported  the  bowl 
to  their  museum  by  night.  They  did  not,  however,  escape 
the  eye  of  the  Abbe  Jeufroy,  who,  by  protesting  against  the 
sacrilege,  judiciously  contrived  to  sell  them  a  piece  of  earthen- 
ware at  an  exorbitant  price  as  '  Old  Rouen."* 

Celticism,  by  an  easy  sequence,  introduced  nature-worship, 
and  soon  everything  Bouvard  saw  was  phallic.  Meanwhile 
the  Abbe's  soup-tureen  brought  on  china-mania,  and  a  sub- 
sequent disillusionment  as  to  the  value  of  marks  on  pottery. 

A  tour  into  Brittany  was  planned  ;  historical  studies  were 
a  necessary  preliminary  ;  soon  they  were  deep  in  the  French 
Revolution.  From  the  difficulty  of  coming  to  definite  con- 
clusions about  the  men  of  that  time,  they  inferred  that  it 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  317 

was  necessary  to  know  all  history.  Then  came  the  difficulty 
of  remembering  dates,  and  they  began  to  use  the  Memoria 
Technka  of  Pecuchet"'s  friend  Dumouchel,  with  results  not 
altogether  happy. 

*  To  secure  greater  clearness  they  took  as  "  memorio-technical 
base/  their  own  house,  their  domicile,  associating  a  distinct  fact 
with  each  part  of  it ;  and  the  court,  the  garden,  the  outskirts, 
the  whole  country,  had  no  longer  any  significance  except  as  an 
aid  to  memory.  The  hedges  in  the  fields  defined  certain  epochs, 
the  apple-trees  were  genealogical  stems,  the  bushes  battles,  the 
whole  world  became  symbolic.  They  sought  for  heaps  of  things 
absent  from  their  walls,  ending  by  seeing  them,  but  forgot  the 
dates  that  they  represented. 

'  Pecuchet  tried  to  explain  myths,  and  got  lost  in  the  Scienza 
Niiova. 

' "  Will  you  deny  the  design  of  Providence  ?  " 

'  "  Don't  know  it,"  said  Bouvard. 

'And  they  decided  to  refer  to  Dumouchel.  The  professor 
declared  that  he  was  now  dead-beat  in  the  matter  of  history. 

' "  It  changes  every  day.  The  kings  of  Rome  are  contested, 
and  the  journeys  of  Pythagoras ;  Belisaiius,  William  Tell,  are 
attacked,  and  even  the  Cid,  who,  thanks  to  the  most  recent  dis- 
coveries, has  become  a  mere  bandit.  It  is  to  be  desired  that 
discoveries  should  cease  to  be  made,  and  indeed  the  Institute 
should  establish  a  kind  of  canon  prescribing  what  we  ought  to 
believe." ' 

Despairing  of  their  authorities,  the  two  friends  determined 
to  write  a  history  of  their  own,  and  selected  as  subject  the 
Duke  of  Angouleme. 

The  result  is  an  excellent  parody  of  the  accepted  form  of 
biography.  The  friends  went  to  the  library  at  Caen  for 
information. 

'  When  they  had  taken  notes  they  drew  up  a  programme  : — 
'  Birth  and  infancy  of  but  little  interest.     One  of  the  tutors 
is  the  Abbe  Guenee,  the  enemy  of  Voltaire. 


318  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  At  Turin  he  is  made  to  cast  a  cannon,  and  he  studies  the 
campaigns  of  Charles  viii.  Also  he  is,  in  spite  of  his  youth, 
named  colonel  of  a  regiment  of  noble  guards. 

'1797.   His  marriage. 

'1814.  The  English  seize  Bordeaux.  He  runs  up  behind 
them  and  shows  his  person  to  the  inhabitants.  Description  of 
the  prince's  person. 

*  1815.  Bonaparte  surprises  him.  All  of  a  sudden  he  summons 
the  king  of  Spain,  and  Toulon,  but  for  Massena,  would  have 
been  delivered  to  England. 

'  Operations  in  the  south.  He  is  beaten,  but  released  under 
the  promise  of  restoring  the  crown  diamonds  carried  off  at  full 
speed  by  his  uncle  the  king. 

'  After  the  Hundred  Days  he  returns  with  his  parents,  and 
lives  quietly.     Several  years  pass. 

'  The  Spanish  War.  As  soon  as  he  has  crossed  the  Pyrenees, 
victory  everywhere  follows  the  son  of  Henry  iv.  He  carries  the 
Trocadero,  reaches  the  Columns  of  Hercules,  annihilates  faction, 
embraces  Ferdinand,  and  comes  back. 

'  Triumphal  arches,  flowers  presented  by  maidens,  dinners  at 
the  Prefecture.  Te  Deu?n  in  the  cathedrals.  The  Parisians  are 
at  the  height  of  intoxication.  The  town  offers  him  a  banquet. 
Allusions  to  the  hero  are  sung  upon  the  stage. 

'  The  enthusiasm  diminishes,  for  in  1827  a  subscription  ball 
at  Chei-bourg  fails. 

'  As  he  is  High  Admiral  of  France,  he  inspects  the  fleet, 
which  is  going  to  sail  for  Algiers. 

'July  1830.  Marmontel  informs  him  of  the  state  of  aflairs. 
Then  he  flies  into  such  a  rage  that  he  wounds  his  own  hand 
with  the  general's  sword. 

'  The  King  commits  to  him  the  command  of  all  the  troops. 

'  He  meets  detachments  of  the  line  at  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
and  has  not  a  single  word  to  say  to  them. 

'  From  Saint  Cloud  he  flies  to  Sevres  Bridge.  Coldness  of 
the  troops.  That  does  not  shake  him.  The  Royal  Family  leave 
Trianon.  He  takes  a  seat  at  the  foot  of  an  oak,  unfolds  a 
map,  reflects,  remounts  his  horse,  passes  in  front  of  Saint  Cyr, 
and  sends  words  of  hope  to  the  students. 

'  At  Rambouillet  the  bodyguards  bid  good-bye  to  him. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  319 

'  He  embarks,  and  is  sick  during  the  whole  of  the  passage. 
End  of  his  career. 

'  One  should  observe  in  it  the  impoi-tant  part  played  by 
bridges. 

'  First,  he  exposes  himself  unnecessarily  on  the  Bridge  of  the 
Inn  ;  he  takes  the  Bridge  of  the  Saint  Esprit,  and  the  Bridge  of 
Lauriot ;  at  Lyons  the  two  bridges  are  fatal  to  him,  and  his 
fortune  expires  before  the  Bridge  of  Sevres. 

'  Catalogue  of  his  virtues.  Useless  to  vaunt  his  courage,  to 
which  he  united  deep  policy.  For  he  offered  every  soldier 
sixty  francs  to  abandon  the  Emperor,  and  in  Spain  he  tried  to 
corrupt  the  constitutional  party  by  money  down. 

'  His  reserve  was  so  profound  that  he  consented  to  the  mar- 
riage planned  between  his  father  and  the  Queen  of  Etruria  ; 
to  the  formation  of  a  new  cabinet  after  the  "  ordonnances  "  ; 
to  the  abdication  in  favour  of  Chambord ;  to  everything  one 
wished. 

'  He  was  not,  however,  wanting  in  firmness.  At  Angers  he 
cashiered  the  infantiy  of  the  National  Guard,  which,  jealous 
of  the  cavalry,  and  by  means  of  a  stratagem,  had  succeeded 
in  forming  his  escort,  so  that  His  Highness  found  himself 
entangled  among  the  privates  to  the  extent  of  getting  his 
knees  squeezed.  But  he  blamed  the  cavalry,  the  cause  of 
the  disorder;  and  pardoned  the  infantry, — a  regular  judgment 
of  Solomon. 

'His  piety  was  shown  by  numerous  devotions,  and  his 
clemency  by  obtaining  the  pardon  of  General  Debelle,  who  had 
borne  arms  against  him. 

'  Personal  details  characteristic  of  the  Prince : — At  the 
chateau  of  Beauregard,  in  his  infancy,  he  took  a  pleasure  in 
digging  out,  along  with  his  brother,  a  pond,  which  is  still 
to  be  seen. 

'Once  he  visited  the  barracks  of  the  Chasseurs,  asked  for 
a  glass  of  wine,  and  drank  it  to  the  health  of  the  King. 

'  While  walking,  in  order  to  mark  the  step,  he  used  to  repeat 
to  himself,  "  One  two,  one  two,  one  two." 

*  Some  of  his  phrases  have  been  preserved.  To  a  deputation 
from  Bordeaux  he  said:  "What  consoles  me  for  not  being  at 
Bordeaux  is  to  find  myself  with  you  !  " 


320     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  To  the  Protestants  of  Nismes  :  "  I  am  a  good  Catholic,  but 
I  shall  never  forget  that  my  most  distinguished  ancestor  was  a 
Protestant." 

'  To  the  students  at  Saint  Cyr,  when  all  was  lost :  "  Good, 
my  friends !     The  news  is  good  !     All  is  well !  very  well !  " 

'  After  the  abdication  of  Charles  x,  :  "  Since  they  do  not  want 
me,  they  must  settle  it  between  them  ! " 

'And  in  1814,  on  every  occasion  in  the  smallest  villages: 
"  No  more  war,  no  more  conscription,  no  more  united  rights  !  " 

'  His  style  was  as  good  as  his  word.  His  proclamations  are 
unsurpassed. 

'  The  first  of  the  Comte  d' Artois  began  thus  : — "  Frenchmen, 
the  brother  of  your  King  has  arrived  !  " 

'  That  of  the  Prince  :  "  I  arrive.  I  am  the  son  of  your  kings  ! 
You  are  Frenchmen." 

'  Order  of  the  day,  dated  from  Bayonne  :  "  Soldiers,  I 
arrive  !  " 

'  Another,  in  the  midst  of  defection  :  "  Continue  to  support, 
with  the  vigour  which  befits  the  French  soldier,  the  struggle 
that  you  have  begun.     France  expects  it  of  you  !  " 

'  Last  of  all,  at  Rambouillet :  "  The  King  has  entered  into  an 
arrangement  with  the  Government  established  at  Paris,  and 
everything  inclines  us  to  believe  that  this  arrangement  is  on  the 
point  of  being  concluded."  "  Everything  inclines  us  to  believe  " 
was  sublime. 

'  "  One  thing  troubles  me,"  said  Bouvard,  "  there  is  no  men- 
tion of  his  love-affairs." 

'  And  they  noted  in  the  margin,  "  Inquire  into  the  Prince's 
amours  !  "  ' 

On  their  return  from  Caen  they  found  their  household  in 
some  confusion  ;  the  famous  chest,  which  was  on  the  point 
of  completion,  broken  up  by  a  stray  cow,  according  to 
Gorju  ;  the  said  Gorju  and  the  new  maid  Melie  issued  sus- 
piciously from  the  barn  ;  the  old  housekeeper,  Germaine,  was 
apparently  drunk ;  Madame  Bordin  appeared  to  be  making 
an  inspection  of  the  premises. 

'  We  do  not  know,^  said  Bouvard,  '  what  goes  on  in  our 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  321 

own  household,  and  yet  we  claim  to  discover  what  was  the 
colour  of  the  Duke  of  Angouleme's  hair,  and  story  of  his 
amours.' 

Eventually  they  decided  upon  a  course  of  historical  novels, 
as  '  History  is  defective  without  imagination.' 

Their  first  delight  in  Walter  Scott  was  spoiled  by  the  dis- 
covery that  he  falsifies  the  order  of  events,  while  Dumas  is 
reckless  in  his  history. 

Pecuchet  took  to  historical  plays. 

'  He  swallowed  two  Pharamonds,  three  Clevises,  four  Charle- 
magnes,  several  Philip  Augustuses,  a  crowd  of  Jeanne  d'Arcs, 
numerous  Pompadours,  and  conspiracies  of  Cellamare. 

'  Nearly  all  seemed  to  him  more  inane  than  the  romances. 
For  there  is  a  conventional  history  for  the  stage  that  is  inde- 
structible. Louis  XI.  will  never  fail  to  kneel  in  front  of  the 
figures  on  his  hat;  Henry  iv.  will  be  for  ever  jovial;  Mary 
Stuart  tearful,  Richelieu  cruel ;  lastly,  all  the  characters  are 
shown  in  one  single  mould,  from  love  of  simplicity  and  respect 
for  ignorance ;  with  the  result  that  the  play-writer,  instead 
of  elevating,  debases,  and  encourages  stupidity  instead  of 
knowledge.' 

Other  novels  proved  no  more  satisfactory  than  the  historical 
romances  ;  even  Balzac,  who  wrote  a  book  on  chemistry, 
another  on  the  bank,  another  on  printing-presses,  just  as 
one  Ricard  had  done  '  the  cabman,' '  the  water-carrier,'  '  the 
coco-nut  seller.'  '  We  should  have  them  upon  all  the  trades, 
and  all  the  provinces,  then  upon  all  the  towns,  and  the  floors 
of  each  house,  and  upon  each  individual ;  and  then  we  shall 
have  literature  no  longer,  but  statistics  or  ethnography.' 

Tragedy  and  comedy  then  occupied  the  attention  of  the 
friends  ;  both  seemed  false. 

One  day  Madame  Bordin  called  to  return  a  volume  of 
Pigault-Lebrun  which  she  had  borrowed ;  Bouvard  was 
reciting ;  she  begged  him  to  continue.     After  some  passages 

X 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

from  Racine  and  Moliere,  addressed  to  Pecuchet,  Bouvard 
delivered  Hernani's  apostrophe  to  Dona  Sol ;  his  eyes  met 
those  of  Madame  Bordin,  sentimental  relations  declared 
themselves ;  Bouvard  became  more  enamoured  of  the  stage 
than  ever,  and  he  and  Pecuchet  resolved  to  write  plays. 
Their  ambition  proved  at  first  greater  than  their  power : 
and  as  usual  they  had  recourse  to  manuals ;  before  long  they 
thought  it  advisable  to  study  grammar,  and  quickly  came  to 
the  opinion  that  '  syntax  is  a  fancy  and  grammar  an  illu- 
sion.""  They  excited  themselves  over  questions  of  style  and 
taste  to  such  an  extent  that  Pecuchet  developed  a  jaundice. 
When  it  was  at  its  height  Madame  Bordin  called ;  she 
wished  to  buy  a  meadow  of  one  acre,  the  lawyer  Marescot 
soon  followed  her  ;  shortly  afterwards  Vaucorbeil  the  doctor, 
and  no  less  a  person  than  the  Comte  de  Faverges,  armed 
with  political  pamphlets,  and  bearing  a  novel  in  his  hand 
which  he  had  confiscated  from  Melie,  discovered  reading  in 
the  kitchen. 

'  They  talked  of  novels.  Madame  Bordin  liked  them  when 
they  were  not  sad. 

'  "  Writers,"  said  M.  de  Faverges,  "  represent  life  to  us  under 
too  glowing  colours." 

'  "  One  must  represent  ..."  objected  Bouvard. 

'  "  Then  one  has  only  to  follow  the  example  ..." 

'  "  There  is  no  question  of  example  !  " 

' "  At  least  you  will  admit  they  may  fall  into  the  hands  of 
a  young  girl.     I  have  a  daughter." 

' "  A  charming  one  !  "  said  the  lawyer,  assuming  the  face 
which  he  wore  at  marriage-contracts. 

'  "  Well,  for  her  sake,  or  rather  that  of  the  persons  who  sur- 
round her,  I  forbid  them  in  my  house,  for  the  People,  my  dear 
sir,  the  People.  .  .  ." ' 

And    so    forth ;    each    of  the    assembled    company  contri- 
buting his  share  to  the  indictment  against  literature,  which 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  323 

is  a  favourite  topic  with  well-meaning  people,  who  have  no 
real  love  of  books. 

*  After  the  departure  of  the  guests  they  epitomised  what 
they  had  just  heard.  The  morality  of  art  is  contained  for  each 
individual  in  the  side  which  flatters  his  interests.' 


Part  IL 

The  Revolution  of  1848  drew  the  attention  of  the  friends 
to  politics ;  as  trees  of  liberty  were  planted  in  Paris,  the 
Municipal  Council  of  Chavignolles  accepted  a  young  poplar- 
tree  from  Bouvard,  which  was  with  all  due  ceremony  placed 
at  the  entrance  of  the  village. 

The  Abbe  Jeufroy  took  charge  of  the  function,  and  made 
a  speech,  in  which, '  after  having  thundered  against  Kings,  he 
glorified  the  Republic.'' 

'  "  Do  we  not  speak  of  the  Republic  of  letters,  the  Christian 
Republic .''  What  could  be  more  innocent  than  the  one^,  more 
beautiful  than  the  other  ?  Jesus  Christ  gave  the  form  of  our 
sublime  device ;  the  tree  of  the  people  was  the  tree  of  the 
Cross.  In  order  that  religion  may  render  her  fruits,  she  needs 
charity,"  and  in  the  name  of  charity,  the  ecclesiastic  adjured  his 
brethren  not  to  commit  any  disorder,  to  return  home  peace- 
fully.' 

All  were  charmed  with  the  speech  and  the  ceremonial ; 
however,  it  was  not  long  before  the  workmen  began  to  sing 
the  Marseillaise,  Gorju  in  their  midst,  and  the  recently 
appointed  Schoolmaster  Petit  at  their  side.  Foureau,  the 
mayor,  began  to  see  visions  of  the  guillotine. 

Soon  everybody  began  to  think  of  being  a  deputy,  from 
Gorju  upwards.  The  captain  dreamed  of  it  under  his 
policeman\s  cap,  while  smoking  his  big  pipe,  and  the  school- 
master  also   in   his   school,   and   the   parson    between  two 


324  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

prayers,  insomuch  that  he  sometimes  surprised  himself  with 
his  eyes  turned  to  Heaven,  in  the  act  of  saying : — '  Grant, 
O  God,  that  I  may  be  made  a  deputy  ! ' 

Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  were  infected  with  the  same  fever, 
but  while  they  were  still  undecided  as  to  which  of  them  had 
the  better  claim,  the  election  was  carried  by  a  newspaper 
editor  from  Caen. 

Then  the  reaction  began.  Gorju  and  his  friends  appeared 
before  the  Municipal  Council  and  demanded  work.  The 
Mayor  trembled,  his  voice  failed  him  ;  and  none  of  his  col- 
leagues showed  any  greater  presence  of  mind.  At  last,  word 
was  send  to  the  deputation  that  shops  of  charity  were  being- 
prepared. 

'  Charity  ?  Thank  you  ! '  cried  Gorj  u.  '  Down  with  the 
aristocrats  !     We  want  the  right  to  work."" 

Pecuchet  eventually  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  attempted 
to  make  a  speech,  but  was  removed  with  some  risk  of  per- 
sonal violence,  from  which  he  was  rescued  by  Gorju.  Pere 
Gouy,  the  tenant  who  farmed  for  Bouvard,  interpreted  the 
'  right  to  work  "*  after  a  fashion  of  his  own,  and  proceeding  to 
Madame  Bordin's  garden  with  a  cart-load  of  manure,  pro- 
ceed to  dig  up  her  lawn.  Bouvard  intervened  in  defence  of 
the  widow,  who  retained  the  manure  as  compensation  for 
damage  done. 

The  public  workshops  only  lasted  a  week.  Gorju  went 
away.  The  National  Guard  began  to  display  great  activity, 
little  discipline  and  no  courage.  A  few  weeks  later,  they 
arrested  a  man  who  was  found  lurking  about  the  place  with 
a  gun,  and  who  proved  to  be  Gorju  in  a  state  of  complete 
destitution.  He  was  sent  to  prison,  hurt,  because  Pecuchet 
did  not  interfere  on  his  behalf. 

On  the  10th  of  December  all  the  inhabitants  of  Chavi- 
gnolles  voted  for  Bonaparte. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  325 

'  The  six  millions  of  votes  chilled  Pecuehet's  affection  for  the 
People, — and  he  and  Bouvard  studied  the  question  of  universal 
suffrage. 

'  Belonging  to  evei-ybody,  it  must  be  devoid  of  intelligence. 
One  ambitious  man  will  always  guide  it,  the  others  will  follow 
like  a  flock,  the  electors  not  being  obliged  even  to  know  how  to 
read  :  that  is  why,  according  to  Pecuchet,  there  was  so  much 
dishonesty  in  the  election  of  the  President. 

' "  None  whatever,"  replied  Bouvard  ;  "  I  incline  rather  to 
believe  in  the  folly  of  the  People.  Think  of  all  those  who  buy 
quack  medicine !  These  fools  form  the  bulk  of  the  electors, 
and  we  submit  to  their  will.  Why  can  one  not  make  an  annual 
income  of  three  thousand  francs  out  of  rabbits  ?  Because  too 
close  crowding  is  a  cause  of  death.  In  the  same  way,  by  the 
mere  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  crowd,  the  germs  of  inanity 
which  it  contains  are  developed,  and  incalculable  consequences 
are  the  result."  ' 

Soon  after  this  the  trees  of  liberty  were  generally  uprooted. 
'  Bouvard  saw  with  his  own  eyes  the  fragments  of  his  poplar 
on  a  wheelbarrow.  They  served  to  warm  the  policemen, 
and  the  stem  was  offered  to  the  cure, — who  had  never  how- 
ever blessed  it !     What  a  piece  of  derision  !  "* 

However,  there  was  one  person  in  Chavignolles  who  did 
not  veer  round  with  the  prevailing  wind  : — 

'  The  schoolmaster  did  not  conceal  his  way  of  thinking. 

'  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  congratulated  him  on  it  one  day  when 
they  were  passing  his  door. 

'  The  next  day  he  called  on  them.  At  the  end  of  the  week 
they  returned  his  visit. 

'The  daylight  was  fading,  the  boys  had  just  gone  away,  and 
the  schoolmaster  in  his  shirt-sleeves  swept  the  court.  His 
wife,  with  a  muslin  cap  on,  was  suckling  a  child.  A  little  girl 
hid  herself  behind  her  petticoats ;  a  hideous  brat  was  playing 
on  the  ground  at  her  feet ;  the  water  from  the  washing  which 
she  was  doing  in  the  kitchen  flowed  in  front  of  the  house. 

' ''  You  see,"  said  the  schoolmaster,  "  how  the  Government 
treats  us  ! "  and  at  once  he  began  to  inveigh  against  the  influ- 


326  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

ences  of  capital.  It  should  be  democratised  ;  matter  should  be 
emancipated. 

'  "  I  ask  for  nothing  better  !  "  said  Pecuchet.  "  At  least  they 
ought  to  have  recognised  the  right  to  assistance." 

'  "  Yet  another  right ! "  said  Bouvard.  "  Nonsense  !  The  pro- 
visional government  had  been  weak  in  not  ordaining  fraternity." 

'  "  Then  try  to  establish  it ! " 

*  As  the  daylight  was  gone.  Petit  roughly  ordered  his  wife  to 
place  a  light  in  his  study. 

'  On  the  plaster  walls  tlie  lithograph  portraits  of  the  orators 
of  the  Left  were  fastened  with  pins,  A  small  bookcase  stood 
over  a  deal  writing-desk.  For  seats,  one  had  a  chair,  a  stool, 
and  an  old  soap-box ;  he  affected  to  laugh.  But  poverty 
hollowed  his  cheeks,  and  his  narrow  temples  indicated  a  ram- 
like obstinacy,  an  unmanageable  pride.  He  would  never  give 
way. 

'  "  Besides,  you  may  see  what  keeps  me  up  ! " 

'  It  was  a  pile  of  newspapers  on  a  shelf,  and  he  set  forth 
in  fevered  words  his  articles  of  faith  :  disarmament  of  troops, 
abolition  of  magistrates,  equality  of  salaries,  a  mean  level  by 
which  one  would  obtain  the  golden  age,  under  the  form  of  the 
Republic,  Avith  a  dictator  at  its  head,  the  right  sort  of  fellow  to 
do  the  whole  thing  for  you  soundly  ! 

'  Then  he  reached  down  a  bottle  of  liqueur  and  three  glasses, 
in  order  to  propose  a  toast  to  the  hero,  the  immortal  victim, 
Maximilian  ! 

'  On  the  threshold  appeared  the  black  cassock  of  the  parson. 

'  Having  greeted  the  company  cheerfully,  he  addressed  the 
schoolmaster,  and  said  to  him,  almost  in  a  whisper : 

'  "  How  is  our  little  matter  of  the  Saint  Joseph  getting  on  ?  " 

'  "They  have  given  nothing,"  replied  the  schoolmaster. 

'"That  is  your  fault!" 

'  "  I  have  done  what  I  could  !  " 

'"Really?" 

'  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  discreetly  rose.  Petit  made  them  sit 
down  again,  and  addressing  himself  to  the  cure  : — 

'"Is  that  all  .>" 

'  The  Abbe  Jeufroy  hesitated  ;  then  with  a  smile,  which  soft- 
ened his  reprimand  : 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  327 

' "  It  is  thought  that  you  neglect  sacred  history^  somewhat." 

'"  Oh  !  sacred  history  !  "  interrupted  Bouvard. 

' "  What  fault  have  you  to  find  with  it^  sir  ?  " 

' "  I — none.  Only  perhaps  there  are  more  useful  things  to  be 
learned  than  the  story  of  Jonah  and  the  Kings  of  Israel." 

' "  You  are  at  liberty  to  do  as  you  please  ! "  replied  the  priest 
drily. 

'And  without  heeding  the  strangers,  or  perhaps  because  of 
them,  he  went  on  : 

'  "  The  catechism  hour  is  too  short !  " 

'  Petit  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

'  "  Pray  attend  !     You  will  lose  your  boarders  ! " 

'  The  ten  francs  a  month  paid  by  these  pupils  was  the  better 
part  of  his  income.     But  the  cassock  exasperated  him  : 

'  "  So  much  the  worse  ;  take  your  revenge  !  " 

'"A  man  of  my  character  never  takes  vengeance,"  said  the 
priest  without  emotion.  "  Only  I  would  remind  you  that  the  law 
of  the  15th  of  March  assigns  the  superintendence  of  primary 
instruction  to  us." 

' "  Ah  !  I  know  it  only  too  well,"  cried  the  schoolmaster.  "  It 
also  appertains  to  colonels  of  police !  Why  not  to  the  local 
policeman  .'' — then  the  system  would  be  complete  !  " 

'  And  he  sank  down  on  the  bench,  biting  his  fingers,  holding 
his  anger,  choked  by  the  sensation  of  his  want  of  powei*. 

'  The  ecclesiastic  touched  him  lightly  on  the  shoulder. 

' "  I  did  not  wish  to  grieve  you,  friend  !  Quiet  yourself !  A 
little  reason  ! 

' "  Here  is  Easter  close  upon  us  !  I  hope  that  you  will  set  an 
example  by  communicating  with  the  rest  ?  " 

'  "That  is  too  much  !     I — I  submit  to  such  absurdities  .''" 

'  In  the  presence  of  this  blasphemy  the  cure  turned  pale.  His 
eyeballs  gleamed.     His  jaw  quivered  : 

'  "  Hold  your  tongue,  unhappy  man,  hold  your  tongue  ! — and 
his  wife  is  the  woman  who  takes  charge  of  the  church  linen  !  " 

'  "  Well — what  ?     What  has  she  done  ?  " 

'  "  She  never  comes  to  mass  !     Like  you,  for  that  matter." 

' "  Well !  A  schoolmaster  is  not  cashiered  for  a  thing  like 
that ! " 

'"He  can  be  dismissed." 


328  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  The  priest  said  no  more.  He  was  at  the  end  of  the  room, 
in  the  shadow.      Petit  with  his  chin  on  his  chest  was  thinking. 

'They  would  arrive  at  the  other  end  of  France^  their  last 
penny  swallowed  by  the  journey,  and  they  would  again  find  over 
there  under  diiferent  names  the  same  cure,  the  same  superinten- 
dent, the  same  prefect ;  all  of  them  up  to  the  Minister  were  like 
the  rings  of  the  same  crushing  chain  !  He  had  already  received 
a  warning,  others  would  follow.  Then  ?  and  in  a  kind  of  hallu- 
cination he  saw  himself  walking  on  along  a  high-road,  a  bag  on 
his  back,  those  whom  he  loved  beside  him,  his  hand  stretched 
out  towards  a  post-chaise  ! 

'  At  that  moment  liis  wife  was  taken  with  a  fit  of  coughing  in 
the  kitchen,  the  last-born  baby  began  to  sci-eam,  and  the  boy 
was  crying. 

'  "  Poor  children  ! "  said  the  priest  in  a  gentle  voice. 

*  Then  the  father  burst  into  sobs. 

'  "  Yes,  yes  !  anything  that  is  wanted  !  " 
' "  I  coimt  upon  it,"  said  the  Cure. 
'  And  having  made  the  usual  bow  : — 
'  "  Gentlemen,  I  wish  you  a  very  good-evening." 
'  The  schoolmaster  remained  with  his  face  in  his  hands.     He 
rejected  Bouvard's  advances. 

' "  No  !  leave  me  !  I  would  like  to  die  !  I  am  a  poor  crea- 
ture." 

*  The  two  friends  returned  to  their  house  congratulating  them- 
selves upon  their  independence.  The  power  of  the  Clergy  terri- 
fied them. 

'  The  reaction  against  the  Republic  continuing,  "  three  million 
electors  found  themselves  excluded  from  universal  suffrage. 
The  caution-money  of  newspapers  was  raised,  censorship  of  the 
press  re-established.  There  was  a  feeling  against  the  romances 
in  the  daily  papers.  Classical  philosophy  was  considered  danger- 
ous. The  middle  classes  preached  the  dogma  of  material 
interests,  and  the  people  seemed  satisfied.' 

At  this  juncture  M.  de  Faverges  thought  it  expedient  to 
give  a  political  lunch,  at  which  Bouvard  was  shocked  by  the 
contrast  between  the  magnificence  of  the  apartments  in 
which  they  met  and  the  meanness  of  the  conversation. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  329 

Having  overheard  M.  de  Faverges  remarking  to  the  Abbe 
Jeufroy,  '  We  must  re-establish  obedience.  Authority  dies, 
if  it  is  discussed  !  The  right  divine,  there  is  nothing  but 
that ! '  the  friends  began  to  study  the  works  of  pohtical 
theorists,  beginnnig  with  the  Enghshmen  Fihner  and  Hobbes, 
and  descending,  through  Rousseau,  St.  Simon,  Fourier  and 
others,  to  Auguste  Comte ;  they  found  that  all  the  social 
reformers  clamoured  for  a  vigorous  despotism  interfering 
with  the  most  minute  details  of  domestic  life.  All  reduced 
their  own  systems  to  an  absurdity. 

"  These  documents  distressed  Pecuchet.  In  the  evening  at 
dinner  he  said  : — 

'  "■  That  there  are  absurdities  in  the  works  of  the  Utopians  I 
admit ;  none  the  less,  they  deserve  our  love.  The  hideousness 
of  the  world  distressed  them,  and  they  have  all  suffered  in  the 
effort  to  make  it  more  beautiful.  Bethink  yourself  of  Thomas 
More  decapitated,  Campanilla  put  to  the  torture  seven  times, 
Buonarotti  with  a  chain  round  his  neck,  Saint-Simon  perishing 
in  want,  many  others.  They  might  have  lived  lives  of  tran- 
quillity :  but  no !  they  trod  their  path  with  their  heads  to 
heaven  like  heroes.' 

' "  Do  you  think  that  the  world  will  be  changed,"  replied 
Bouvard,  "thanks  to  the  theories  of  some  gentleman  ?" 

•^"What  then  !"  said  Pecuchet,  "it  is  time  to  give  up  squat- 
ting in  egotism  !     Let  us  look  for  the  best  system  ! " 

*  "  Then  you  count  upon  finding  it  ?  " 
'"Certainly  !" 

*  "  You  }  " 

'  And  in  the  fit  of  laughing  which  seized  Bouvard  his 
shoulders  and  his  stomach  heaved  together.  Redder  than  the 
jam  on  the  table,  his  napkin  under  his  arm,  he  kept  repeating 
.  .  .  "  ha  !  ha  !  ha  !  "  in  an  irritating  manner. 

'  Pecuchet  went  out  of  the  room  slamming  the  door  behind 
him. 

'  The  housekeeper  called  for  him  all  over  the  house, — and  at 
last  he  was  found  in  the  depths  of  his  own  apartment,  in  an 


330  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

easy-chair  without  fire  or  candle,  and  his  cap  over  his  eyes. 
He  was  not  ill,  but  was  giving  himself  up  to  his  own  reflections. 
'Their  quarrel  over,  they  recognised  that  their  studies 
wanted  a  sound  foundation, — political  economy.  So  they  in- 
quired into  supply  and  demand,  capital  and  rent,  imposts  and 
prohibition.' 

The  coup  cVEtat  shortly  afterwards  pleased  everybody  ; 
even  Petit  rejoiced  that  Thiers  and  other  deputies  were  in 
prison. 

'The  butchery  on  the  Boulevards  won  the  approbation  of 
Chavignolles.  No  mercy  for  the  conquered,  no  pity  for  the 
victims  !     As  soon  as  one  revolts  one  is  a  ci'iminal. 

' "  Let  us  thank  Providence  ! "  said  the  cure,  "  and  after 
Providence,  Louis  Bonaparte.  He  is  surrounding  himself  with 
the  men  of  most  distinction  !  The  Comte  de  Faverges  will  be 
made  a  Senator  !  " 

'  The  next  day  they  had  a  visit  from  the  chief  of  the  police. 

'  These  gentlemen  had  talked  a  good  deal.  He  pledged 
them  to  hold  their  tongues. 

' "  Would  you  like  to  know  my  opinion  ? "  said  Pecuchet. 
"  Since  the  middle  class  are  savage,  the  artisans  jealous,  the 
priests  servile, — and  the  people  in  the  end  puts  up  with  all 
tyrants,  provided  it  is  allowed  to  keep  its  muzzle  in  the  feeding- 
trough.  Napoleon  has  done  rightly  !  Let  him  gag  the  rabble 
and  exterminate  it !  That  will  never  be  more  than  it  deserves 
for  its  hatred  of  right,  its  cowardice,  its  ineptitude,  its  blind- 
ness." 

A  still  worse  disappointment  awaited  the  friends.  They 
began  to  grow  tired  of  one  another. 

Bouvard  beg-an  to  reflect  that  he  might  do  worse  than 
marry  again,  and  seriously  paid  his  court  to  Madame  Bordin. 
A  series  of  accidents  inflamed  Pecuchet  with  a  violent  passion 
for  Melie,  the  maid,  who  had  been  recommended  by  Gorju. 
But  it  turned  out  that  Madame  Bordin  cared  nothing  for 
Bouvard,  her  affections  being  really  fixed  upon  a  particular 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  331 

meadow  in  his  farm,  and  when  he  refused  her  this  on  the 
occasion  of  drawing  up  the  marriage-settlement,  she  broke 
out  into  insults,  spoke  contemptuously  of  his  constitution, 
his  pot-belly  ;  while  Pecuchet  discovered  too  late  that  Melie 
must  have  had  other  admirers  than  himself. 

The  disillusionment  brought  the  friends  together  again ; 
they  repeated  all  the  commonplaces  that  have  ever  been  said 
to  the  disadvantage  of  women ;  and  consoled  themselves  with 
a  course  of  hydropathy  and  gymnastics  under  the  guidance 
of  the  Manual  of  Amoros  ;  and  with  the  results  which  usually 
attend  upon  the  athletics  of  the  middle-aged. 

At  this  period  some  spirit-rappers  descended  upon  the 
Chateau  de  Faverges,  and  from  thence  their  practices  spread 
through  the  village  ;  and  by  a  natural  sequence  directed  the 
attention  of  Pecuchet  to  animal  magnetism  ;  he  read  the 
Magnetiser's  Chiide  by  Montacabere,  and  imparted  his  dis- 
coveries to  Bouvard.  Its  therapeutic  powers  particularly 
interested  them,  and  the  successful  results  of  an  experiment 
upon  their  housekeeper  tempted  them  to  a  wider  extension 
of  their  skill ;  the  fame  of  Bouvard  even  spread  to  Falaise. 

Soon  their  garden  was  crowded  with  patients ;  a  woman 
with  a  tumour  among  them  ;  a  pubhc  demonstration  was 
given  of  the  effect  of  a  magnetised  tree,  but  in  spite  of  some 
encouraging  symptoms,  '  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  had  not  on 
the  whole  succeeded.  Had  that  to  do  with  the  temperature, 
or  the  smell  of  tobacco,  or  the  Abbe  Jeufroy's  umbrella, 
which  was  ornamented  with  copper,  a  metal  unfavourable  to 
the  emission  of  the  fluid  ? ' 

Spiritualism  succeeded  magnetism,  and  Pecuchet  foundered 
his  intellect  in  the  endeavour  to  discover  what  there  was 
beautiful  in  the  revelations  of  Swedenborg,  which  appeared 
to  Bouvard  a  fooFs  dream ;  but  he  was  not  proof  against  the 
charms  of  magic,  and  employed  the  methods  of  one  Dupotet 


332  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

to  raise  a  spirit  called  Bechet  with  such  effect  that  they 
frightened  their  old  housekeeper  out  of  her  wits.  She  left 
them  that  evening  for  good. 

For  a  time  their  extravagances  became  wilder  each  day ; 
they  took  a  divining-wand,  sought  for  hidden  treasure ; 
mesmerised  fowls ;  Pecuchet  invited  a  condition  of  ecstasy, 
and  found  that  it  depended  upon  an  external  and  material 
circumstance,  the  bright  under-surface  of  the  peak  of  his 
cap.  This  led  them  to  study  metaphysics,  ethics,  and  at 
last  Bouvard  did  not  even  believe  in  matter. 

'The  certainty  that  nothing  exists  (deplorable  though  it  be) 
is  none  the  less  a  certainty.  Few  persons  are  capable  of  having 
it.  This  transcendental  position  inspired  them  with  pride,  and 
they  would  have  liked  to  make  a  display.  An  opportunity 
offered. 

'  One  morning  on  their  way  to  buy  tobacco  they  saw  a  crowd 
in  front  of  Langlois'  door.  They  were  surrounding  the  Falaise 
omnibuSj  and  there  was  a  great  talk  of  one  Touache,  a  galley- 
slave,  who  roamed  about  the  country.  The  conductor  had  met 
him  at  Croix- Verte,  between  two  policemen,  and  the  good  folk 
of  Chavignolles  breathed  a  sigh  of  deliverance. 

'  Girbal  and  the  Captain  remained  on  the  green,  then  the 
justice  of  the  peace  arrived,  anxious  to  have  information,  and 
M.  Marescot,  the  notary,  in  a  velvet  cap  and  list  slippers. 

'  Langlois  invited  them  to  honour  his  shop  with  their 
presence.  They  would  be  more  at  their  ease,  and  in  spite  of 
the  customers  and  the  noise  of  the  bell  these  gentlemen  con- 
tinued to  discuss  the  delinquencies  of  Touache. 

' "  My  goodness  ! "  said  Bouvard,  "  he  had  bad  instincts,  there 
you  are  ! " 

'"They  are  conquered  by  virtue,"  replied  the  notary. 

'  "  But  if  one  has  no  virtue  ? ' 

'And  Bouvard  absolutely  denied  free-will. 

'"  Yet,"  said  the  Captain,  "  I  can  do  what  I  like  !  I  am  free, 
for  instance,  to  move  my  leg  !  " 

' "  No,  sir,  for  you  have  a  motive  for  moving  it ! " 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  333 

The  Captain  sought  an  answei%  failed  to  find  one.  But 
Girbal  let  off  this  missile  : — 

'  "  A  Republican  speaking  against  liberty  !  that  is  funny." 

'  "  A  real  joke  !  "  said  Langlois. 

'  Bouvard  interrupted  him  : 

* "  Whence  comes  it  that  you  do  not  give  your  fortune  to  the 
poor  ?  " 

'  The  grocer  cast  his  eyes  round  his  shop  with  an  anxious  air. 

'  "  Eh,  why  ?     I  am  not  such  a  fool !     I  keep  it  for  myself!  " 

'  "  If  you  were  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  you  would  act  differently, 
because  you  would  have  his  character.  You  obey  your  own. 
Therefore  you  are  not  free." 

'"It  is  a  quibble,"  replied  the  company  in  chorus. 

Bouvard  did  not  budge  from  his  position,  and  pointing  to  the 
scales  upon  the  counter  : — 

'  "  They  will  remain  motionless,  so  long  as  one  of  the  pans  is 
empty.  It  is  the  same  with  the  will ;  and  the  oscillation  of 
the  balance  between  two  weights,  which  seem  equal,  represents 
the  work  of  our  mind,  when  it  deliberates  upon  motives,  till  the 
moment,  when  the  stronger  has  its  way,  determines. 

"'All  that,"  said  Girbal,  "does  nothing  for  Touache,  and 
does  not  prevent  hira  from  being  a  thoroughly  vicious  rascal." 

'  Pecuchet  took  up  the  word  : — 

' "  Vices  are  natural  properties,  like  inundations,  storms." 

'  The  notary  stopped  him,  and  raising  himself  on  tip-toe  at 
every  word,  said  : — 

' "  I  think  your  system  complete  in  its  immorality.  It  gives 
an  opening  to  all  excesses,  excuses  crimes,  makes  the  guilty 
innocent." 

'"Certainly,'  said  Bouvard.  "The  unfortunate  being  who 
follows  his  appetites  is  as  much  in  his  rights  as  the  honest  man 
who  listens  to  reason." 

'"Do  not  defend  monsters." 

'"Why  monsters.^  When  a  man  is  born  blind,  an  idiot,  a 
homicide,  it  seems  to  us  contrary  to  ordei-,  as  if  order  were 
known  to  us,  as  if  nature  worked  to  an  end  ! " 

'  Then  you  dispute  Providence  ?  " 

' "  Yes,  I  dispute  it ! " 

'"Consider  history  rather,"    cried    Pecuchet.     "Recall   the 


334  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

assassinations  of  kings,  the  massacre  of  peoples,  the  dissensions 
in  families,  the  sorrows  of  individuals." 

'^'  And  at  the  same  time,"  added  Bouvard,  for  they  mutually 
heated  one  another,  "  this  Providence  of  yours  cares  for  the 
little  birds,  and  makes  the  claws  of  crayfish  grow  again.  Ah, — 
if  you  understand  by  Providence  a  law  which  rules  everything, 
I  am  with  you,  and  then  ! " 

'  "  Yet,  sir,"  said  the  notary,  "  there  are  principles  !  " 

'"What  is  your  song  now  .-^  A  science,  according  to  Con- 
dillac,  is  so  much  the  better,  as  it  has  no  need  of  them  !  They 
only  epitomise  acquired  knowledge,  and  refer  us  precisely  to 
those  notions  which  are  open  to  question." 

' "  Have  you,  like  us,"  went  on  Pecuchet,  "  searched,  explored 
the  secrets  of  metaphysics  ?  " 

' "  That  is  true,  gentlemen,  that  is  true." 

'  And  the  company  broke  up. 

'  But  Coulon,  drawing  them  aside,  told  them  in  a  fatherly 
tone  that  he  was  not  strict,  certainly,  he  even  detested  the 
Jesuits.  However,  he  did  not  go  so  far  as  they  did  !  Oh  no, — 
certainly  not ; — and  at  the  corner  of  the  green  they  passed  in 
front  of  the  Captain,  who  was  lighting  his  pipe,  grumbling  : — 

' "  Still  I  do  what  I  like,  damn  it  all !  " 

'  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  produced  their  abominable  paradoxes 
on  other  occasions.  They  cast  a  doubt  upon  the  honesty  of 
men,  the  chastity  of  women,  the  intelligence  of  government, 
the  good  sense  of  the  people, — in  a  word,  undermined  the 
foundations. 

'  Foureau  lost  his  temper  over  it,  and  threatened  them  with 
prison  if  they  went  on  with  such  discourse. 

'  The  evidence  of  their  superiority  was  galling.  As  they  sup- 
ported immoral  propositions  they  must  be  immoral,  calumnies 
were  invented. 

'  Then  an  unfortunate  faculty  was  developed  in  their  minds ; 
that  of  seeing  inanity  and  being  unable  to  tolerate  it  any  longer. 

'  Insignificant  things  saddened  them ;  the  advertisements  in 
the  papers,  the  profile  of  a  middle-class  person,  a  stupid  remai'k 
heard  by  chance. 

'Thinking  over  what  was  said  in  their  own  village,  and  that 
there  were  from  them  to  the  Antipodes  other  Coulons,  other 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  335 

Marescots,  other  Foureaus^  they  felt  as  it  were  the  heaviness  of 
the  whole  earth  weighing  them  down. 

'  They  ceased  to  go  out,  to  receive  anybody.' 

Death  itself  ceased  to  be  a  reality  to  tiiem,  and  their 
existence  became  so  insupportable  that  Pecuchet  took  two 
ropes  from  the  gymnastic  apparatus,  made  a  slip-knot  at  the 
end  of  each,  and  slung  them  over  the  cross-beam  of  the  attic 
roof  with  two  chairs,  one  under  each. 

On  the  24th  of  December,  just  before  midnight,  a  quarrel 
broke  out ;  Pecuchet  rushed  out  to  the  barn,  followed  by 
Bouvard  ;  they  each  jumped  on  to  one  of  the  chairs,  and 
prepared  to  adjust  the  fatal  noose,  when  Pecuchet  remem- 
bered that  their  wills  were  not  yet  made.  Looking  through 
the  window  they  saw  lights  in  the  churchyard :  it  w^as  the 
midnight  mass  of  Christmas  Eve. 

Curiosity  drove  them  to  join  the  service  ;  at  the  end  of  it 
the  Host  was  elevated  by  the  priest  as  high  as  possible. 
'  Then  there  burst  out  a  song  of  gladness,  inviting  all  the 
world  to  the  feet  of  the  King  of  Angels.  Bouvard  and 
Pecuchet  involuntarily  joined  in,  and  felt,  as  it  were,  a  new 
dawn  rising  in  their  souls.' 

The  next  day  it  seemed  to  them  that  the  execution  of 
their  rash  purpose  had  been  suspended  by  a  miraculous 
intervention,  and  they  resolved  to  betake  themselves  to 
pious  reading. 

Part  IIL 

'  One  day  they  went  to  mass,  then  returned.  It  was  a  dis- 
traction at  the  end  of  the  week.  The  Count  and  Countess  de 
Faverges  bowed  to  them  in  the  distance ;  the  thing  was 
remarked.  The  justice  of  the  peace  said  to  them,  closing  his 
eyelids,  "  Perfect,  I  commend  you  !  "  All  the  ladies  of  the 
place  now  began  to  send  them  holy  bread. 


336  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Abbe  Jeufroy  paid  them  a  visit ;  they  returned  it ;  an 
intimacy  grew  up  ;  and  the  priest  never  talked  of  religion. 

'  They  were  astonished  at  this  reserve ;  so  much  so  that 
Pecuchet  asked  him  casually  how  a  man  should  set  about 
getting  faith. 

'  "  First  observe  the  duties  of  religion." 

'  They  did  so  ;  the  one  with  hope,  the  other  with  mistrust, 
Bouvard  being  convinced  that  he  would  never  be  pious.  For 
a  month  he  followed  all  the  services  regularly,  but,  unlike 
Pecuchet,  did  not  wish  to  condemn  himself  to  fasting.' 

None  the  less,  when  he  impiously  ordered  a  beef-steak  on 
Good  Friday,  he  found  himself  unable  to  eat  it ;  the  habits 
learned  in  childhood  were  too  strong  for  him. 

Pecuchet,  as  might  have  been  anticipated,  took  his  devo- 
tion very  seriously  ;  he  tried  to  overcome  his  passionate 
temper,  to  cultivate  humility,  became  so  chaste  that  he 
averted  his  gaze  from  his  own  limbs  when  he  was  undressed, 
and  wore  bathing-drawers  when  he  went  to  bed.  One  day 
Bouvard  surprised  him  half-stripped,  in  the  act  of  scourging 
himself. 

The  friends  passed  under  the  special  protection  of  Made- 
moiselle Reine,  the  cure's  housekeeper ;  she  introduced  them 
to  one  Gouttman,  a  purveyor  of  pious  articles  ;  and  they 
were  not  long  in  bartering  the  contents  of  their  museum  for 
candelabra,  portable  altars,  pictures  of  saints,  a  cradleful  of 
hay,  and  a  cork  cathedral. 

'  Pecuchet  adopted  the  ecclesiastical  style,  doubtless  owing 
to  his  intimacy  with  the  cure.  He  had  his  smile,  his  voice, 
and  a  chilly  way  of  slipping  his  hands  up  to  the  wrists  into 
his  sleeves.'  He  groaned  over  his  meals,  having  read  in  a 
manual  of  devotion  that  it  was  becoming  to  do  so ;  and 
finally,  in  order  to  acquire  the  gift  of  perseverance,  made  a 
})ilgrimage,  in  company  with  Bouvard,  to  the  shrine  of  Notre 
Dame  de  la  Delivrande,  where  there  was  a  miraculous  statue, 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  337 

'  discovered  about  1112  by  a  sheep,  which  indicated  the 
place  where  it  was  by  tapping  on  the  grass  with  its  foot,  and 
on  that  spot  Count  Baldwin  erected  a  sanctuary/ 

In  spite  of  the  miraculous  powers  of  Notre  Dame  de  la 
Delivrande,  Bouvard  gained  little  from  the  expedition, 
which,  however,  brought  him  into  contact  once  more  with 
his  old  friend  Barberou,  who  appeared  at  an  inn  at  which 
the  friends  stayed,  in  the  capacity  of  wine  -  merchant's 
traveller. 

On  their  return  they  were  invited  to  the  annual  dinner 
which  Abbe  Jeufroy  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  to  his  col- 
leagues ;  it  began  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  ended 
at  eleven  o'clock  at  night. 

'  They  drank  perry,  produced  puns.  Abbe  Pruneau  impro- 
vised an  acrostic.  M.  Rougon  showed  some  card-tricks,  and  a 
young  curate,  Cerpet,  sang  a  little  romance  which  touched  the 
borders  of  gallantry. 

Before  long  the  friends  decided  to  take  the  Holy  Com- 
munion, which  they  did  on  the  Sunday  after  the  annual 
confirmation.  They  were  rewarded  by  an  invitation  to  the 
house  of  the  Comte  de  Faverges. 

On  their  return  from  church  they  found  a  book  awaiting 
them  ;  it  was  the  Examen  du  Christianisme  by  Louis  Hervieu. 
Barberou  had  sent  it.  Pecuchet  putitout  of  sight.  Bouvard 
had  no  wish  to  make  its  acquaintance. 

'  He  had  been  told  that  the  Sacrament  would  change  him  ; 
for  several  days  he  was  on  the  look-out  for  signs  of  budding  in 
his  conscience.  But  he  continued  the  same,  and  a  painful 
amazement  took  possession  of  him.  M.  Jeufroy,  while  com- 
forting him,  recommended  the  Catechism  of  Abbe  Gaume.' 

Pecuchet,  on  the  other  hand,  became  highly  devout,  sang 
psalms  as  he  walked  up  and  down  the  passage  ;  stopped  the 

Y 


338  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

natives  of  Chavignolles,  argued  with  them,  endeavoured  to 
convert  them.  They  laughed  in  his  face  and  called  him  a 
hypocrite.  '  It  was  now  thought  that  the  friends  were  going 
too  far.' 

'  Pecuchet  took  refuge  with  the  mystic  authors.  Saint  Theresa, 
Jean  de  la  Croix,  Louis  de  Grenade,  Simpoli,  and  of  the  more 
modern,  Monseigneur  Chaillot.  Instead  of  the  sublimities, 
which  he  expected,  he  only  encountered  platitudes,  a  very  slack 
style,  chilly  images,  and  plenty  of  comparisons  taken  from  the 
lapidaiy's  shop. 

'  He  learned,  however,  that  there  is  an  active  purgation  and 
a  passive  purgation,  an  internal  vision  and  an  external  vision, 
four  kinds  of  prayers,  nine  excellencies  in  love,  six  degrees  in 
humility,  and  that  the  wound  of  the  soul  is  not  very  different 
from  a  spiritual  robbery. 

'  Some  points  embarrassed  him. 

'  "  Since  the  flesh  is  cursed,  how  is  it  that  one  is  bound  to 
thank  God  for  the  benefit  of  existence  ?  What  mean  is  to  be 
kept  between  the  fear  indispensable  to  salvation,  and  hope, 
which  is  no  less  so .''     Where  is  the  sign  of  grace  ?"  etc. 

'  The  answers  of  M,  Jeufroy  were  simple  : 

'  "  Do  not  worry  yourself.  In  wishing  to  get  to  the  bottom 
of  everything  one  runs  on  a  dangerous  slope." 

'  The  Catechism  of  Perseverance  by  Gaume  had  disgusted 
Bouvard  to  such  a  degree  that  he  took  up  Louis  Hervieu's 
volume.  It  was  a  summary  of  modern  exegesis  forbidden  by 
the  Government.     Barberou  had  bought  it  as  a  Republican. 

'  It  awoke  doubts  in  Bouvard's  mind,  and,  to  begin  with,  on 
original  sin.  "  If  God  created  man  peccable.  He  ought  not  to 
punish  him ;  and  evil  is  anterior  to  the  fall,  because  there  were 
already  volcanoes,  savage  animals.  In  a  word,  this  dogma 
upsets  my  notions  of  justice  ! " 

'  "  What  would  you  have  .''  "  said  the  cure,  "  it  is  one  of  those 
truths  about  which  every  one  is  agreed,  without  being  able  to 
supply  proofs  ;  and  we  ourselves  visit  the  crimes  of  their  fathers 
upon  the  children.  Thus  morality  and  law  justify  this  ordinance 
of  Providence,  which  is  found  in  nature." 

'  Bouvard  shook  his  head.     He  also  doubted  hell. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  339 

'  "  For  every  punishment  should  look  to  the  improvement  of 
the  guilty  one,  which  is  impossible  with  an  eternal  penalty ; 
and  how  many  are  suffering  it !  Just  think,  all  the  ancients,  the 
Jews,  Mussulmans,  idolaters,  heretics,  and  children  dead  unbap- 
tized,  those  children  created  by  God,  and  with  what  object ! 
To  punish  them  for  a  sin  which  they  have  not  committed  !  " 

' "  Such  is  the  opinion  of  St.  Augustine,"  added  the  cure, 
"and  St.  Fulgentius  includes  even  the  foetus  in  damnation. 
The  Church,  it  is  true,  has  come  to  no  decision  on  this  point. 
One  remark,  however :  it  is  not  God  but  the  sinner  who  con- 
demns himself,  and  the  offence  being  infinite,  since  God  is 
infinite  the  punishment  should  be  infinite.     Is  that  all,  sir  .''  " 

'  "Explain  me  the  Trinity,"  said  Bouvard. 

'  "  With  pleasure.  Let  us  take  a  comparison  :  the  three  sides 
of  a  triangle,  or  rather  our  own  soul,  which  contains  being, 
knowing,  and  willing  ;  what  one  calls  a  faculty  in  man  is  a 
person  in  God.     There  is  your  mystery." 

* "  Yes,  but  the  three  sides  of  a  triangle  are  not  each  one 
of  them  the  triangle :  these  three  faculties  of  the  soul  do  not 
form  three  souls,  and  your  persons  of  the  Trinity  are  three 
Gods." 

'  "  Blasphemy  !  " 

'"Then  there  is  only  one  person,  one  God,  one  substance 
affected  in  three  manners  !  " 

' "  Let  us  adore  without  understanding,"  said  the  cure. 

'  "  Good,"  said  Bouvard. 

'  He  was  afraid  of  being  taken  for  an  atheist,  of  falling  into 
disfavour  at  the  big  house. 

*  They  used  to  go  there  now  three  times  a  week  about  five 
o'clock  in  the  winter,  and  the  cup  of  tea  warmed  them.  The 
Count  recalled  the  style  of  the  ancient  court  by  his  manners  ; 
the  Countess,  placid  and  stout,  showed  on  all  points  great  dis- 
cernment ;  and  their  daughter.  Mademoiselle  Yolande,  was  the 
type  of  the  young  person,  the  angel  of  the  "  Keepsake";  and 
Madame  de  Noares,  their  companion,  was  like  Pecuchet,  having 
his  pointed  nose.' 

She  had  converted  Gorju,  and  secured  the  Count's  pro- 
tection for  two  vagabond  children  that  she  had  picked  up. 


340  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

Their  father  was   the   convict   Touache,  a   fact  which  she 
concealed. 

'  When  M.  Jeufroy  used  to  go  to  the  chateau  the  two  brats 
were  sent  for ;  he  used  to  question  them,  then  gave  a  lecture^ 
into  which  he  used  to  put  some  elevation  on  account  of  the 
audience. 

'  Once  when  he  had  discoursed  on  the  Patriarchs,  Bouvard, 
on  the  way  home  along  with  him  and  Pecuchetj  abused  them 
violently. 

' "  Jacob  is  distinguished  by  his  rascalities,  David  by  his 
mui'ders,  Solomon  by  his  debaucheries." 

'  The  Abbe  replied  to  him  that  one  must  look  further  than 
that.  The  saci'ifice  of  Abraham  is  the  type  of  the  Passion  ; 
Jacob  another  type  of  the  Messiah,  like  Joseph,  like  the  brazen 
serpent,  like  Moses. 

' "  Do  you  believe,"  said  Bouvard,  "  that  he  composed  the 
Pentateuch  ?  " 

'"Yes,  without  doubt." 

' "  Yet  his  death  is  recorded  in  it ;  the  same  remark  applies 
to  Joshua ;  and  as  for  the  Judges,  the  author  infoi'ms  us  that  at 
the  period  whose  history  he  is  writing  Israel  had  not  as  yet 
kings.  The  work  then  was  written  under  the  kings.  The 
prophets  also  amaze  me." 

'  "  Now  he  is  going  to  deny  the  prophets." 

' "  Not  at  all !  But  their  heated  imagination  saw  Jehovah 
under  different  forms,  that  of  a  fire,  of  a  bush,  of  an  old  man,  of 
a  dove ;  and  they  were  not  certain  of  revelation  since  they  are 
always  asking  for  a  sign." 

*  "  Ah,  and  you  have  foimd  these  fine  things .'' " 

' "  In  Spinoza." 

'  At  this  word  the  cure  jumped. 

'  "  Have  you  read  him  }  " 

'  "  Heaven  forbid  !     And  yet,  sir,  science  .  .  ." 

'  "Sir,  one  is  not  scientific  if  one  is  not  a  Christian," 

'The  subject  of  science  inspired  him  with  sarcasms: — "Will 
it  make  a  single  blade  of  corn  grow,  your  science  .''  What  do  we 
know  > ''  said  he. 

'  But  he  did  know  that  the  world  was  created  for  us ;  he  knew 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  341 

that  archangels   are  above  angels ;    he  knew  that  the  human 
body  will  rise  again^  such  as  it  was  at  thirty  years  of  age. 

'  His  sacerdotal  confidence  maddened  Bouvard,  who,  mis- 
trusting Louis  Hervieu,  wrote  to  Varlot ;  and  Pecuchet,  better 
informed,  asked  M.  Jeufroy  for  explanations  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures. 

'  The  six  days  of  Genesis  mean  six  great  epochs.  The  theft 
of  the  precious  jewels  taken  by  the  Jews  from  the  Egyptians 
must  be  taken  to  signify  intellectual  riches, — the  arts,  whose 
secrets  they  had  stolen.  Isaiah  did  not  completely  disrobe  him- 
self, nudus  in  Latin  meaning  only  to  the  hips ;  thus  Virgil 
advises  us  to  strip  to  plough,  and  that  writer  would  never  have 
given  a  precept  contrary  to  decency !  Ezekiel  devouring  a 
book  has  nothing  extraordinary  in  it ;  do  not  we  talk  of  devour- 
ing a  pamphlet,  a  paper  ? 

"But  if  we  see  .metaphors  everywhere,  what  will  become  of 
the  facts  .''"    The  Abbe  none  the  less  asserted  that  they  were  real. 

'  This  manner  of  understanding  them  appeared  to  Pecuchet 
disloyal.  He  pushed  his  researches  further,  and  brought  a  note 
on  the  contradictions  in  the  Bible.  "  Where,"  he  asked,  "  was 
the  inspiration  ?  " 

'"The  greater  the  reason  for  admitting  it,"  replied  M. 
Jeufroy,  smiling.  "  Impostors  require  consistency,  honest  writers 
do  not  trouble  about  it.  In  difficulty  let  us  have  recourse  to 
the  Church  !     She  is  infallible  always." 

'  "  Whence  comes  her  infallibility  ?  " 

' "  The  Councils  of  Bale  and  of  Constance  attribute  it  to  the 
Councils.  But  the  Councils  are  often  at  variance — for  example, 
the  one  which  passed  a  verdict  for  Athanasius  and  for  Arius ; 
those  of  Florence  and  the  Lateran  attribute  it  to  the  Pope. 
But  Adrian  vi.  declares  that  the  Pope  can  make  a  mistake 
like  any  other  man." 

'"Quibbles  !  All  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  perman- 
ence of  dogma." 

'"Louis  Hervieu's  work  points  out  its  variations.  Baptism 
formerly  was  reserved  for  adults,  extreme  unction  was  not  a 
sacrament  till  the  ninth  century,  the  real  presence  was  decreed 
in  the  eighth,  purgatory  recognised  in  the  fifteenth,  the  im- 
maculate conception  is  an  affair  of  yesterday." 


34^  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  M.  Jeufroy  secretly  consulted  his  friend  Pruneau,  who 
sought  for  proofs  for  him  in  the  authors.  A  war  of  erudition 
ensued;  and,  stimulated  by  his  self-esteem,  Pecuchet  became 
transcendently  mythological. 

'  He  compared  the  Virgin  to  Isis,  the  Eucharist  to  the  homa  of 
the  Persians,Bacchusto  Moses,  Noah's  Ark  to  the  ship  of  Xithurus ; 
— these  resemblances  proved  for  him  the  identity  of  religions. 

'  But  there  cannot  be  several  religions  since  there  is  only  one 
God, — and  when  he  was  at  the  end  of  his  arguments  the  man 
of  the  cassock  used  to  cry,  "  It  is  a  mystery  !  " 

'  What  does  that  word  mean  ?  Deficiency  of  knowledge ; 
very  good.  But  if  it  indicates  a  thing,  the  mere  statement  of 
which  involves  a  contradiction,  it  is  a  folly  ;  and  Pecuchet  would 
not  leave  M.  Jeufroy.  He  surprised  him  in  his  garden,  awaited 
him  at  the  confessional,  hurried  him  into  the  sacristy.' 

The  priest  used  to  devise  plans  of  escape,  but  he  was  not 
always  successful ;  and  one  day  Pecuchet  succeeded  in  inter- 
cepting him  on  the  high-road,  and  entangling  him  in  a  long 
discussion  on  the  subject  of  persecutions  and  martyrdoms ;  a 
very  heavy  shower  of  rain  came  on  ;  they  had  only  one 
umbrella  between  them,  and  there  they  stood  belly  to  belly 
under  its  protection,  shaken  by  the  violence  alike  of  the 
storm  and  their  altercation.  In  the  end  Pecuchet  claimed 
the  title  of  martyr  for  the  Protestants  killed  in  Ireland  and 
Belgium  by  the  Catholics,  but  he  was  met  by  the  statement 
that  there  are  no  martyrs  outside  the  Church. 

* "  One  word :  if  the  value  of  a  martyrdom  depends  upon 
the  doctrine,  how  could  it  serve  to  demonstrate  the  value  of 
the  doctrine  .'' " 

'They  parted  at  the  priest's  house,  who  could  only  say:  "I 
am  sorry  for  you  ;  in  real  truth,  I  am  sorry  for  you  !  "  ' 

Meanwhile  the  visits  to  the  chateau  were  continued,  and 
Madame  de  Noares  interested  herself  in  the  conversion  of 
Pecuchet ;  she  secretly  sewed  a  medal  of  St.  Joseph  into  the 
lining  of  his  cap,  that  saint  being  particularly  favourable  to 
conversions. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  343 

'  Her  time  was  spent  in  writing  letters,  in  visiting  the  poor, 
in  dissolving  irregular  cohabitations,  in  distributing  photographs 
of  the  Sacred  Heart.  A  gentleman  was  to  send  her  some 
"  martyr  paste,"  a  mixture  of  paschal  wax  and  the  human  dust 
taken  from  the  catacombs,  and  which  is  used  in  plasters  or 
pilules  in  desperate  cases.  She  promised  some  of  it  to 
Pecuchet. 

'  He  seemed  shocked  at  such  materialism. 

'  In  the  evening  a  footman  from  the  chateau  brought  him  a 
bundle  of  little  books,  relating  pious  speeches  of  the  great 
Napoleon,  smart  remarks  made  by  clergymen  in  public-houses, 
horrible  deaths  that  had  happened  to  atheists.  Madame  de 
Noares  knew  all  that  by  heart,  and  a  quantity  of  miracles  as  well. 

'She  related  stupid  ones,  aimless  miracles,  as  if  God  had 
worked  them  to  mystify  the  world.  Her  own  grandmother 
had  shut  up  some  dried  plums  in  a  cupboard  covered  with  a 
cloth,  and  when  the  cupboard  was  opened  a  year  later,  thirteen 
of  them  were  seen  on  the  cloth,  forming  a  cross. 

' "  Explain  me  that  I  " 

'  This  was  her  phrase  after  her  stories,  which  she  maintained 
with  the  obstinacy  of  a  pack-ass ;  for  the  rest  a  good-natured 
woman  and  of  a  playful  humour. 

'  Once,  however,  she  '-  forgot  herself." 

'  Bouvard  was  protesting  against  the  miracle  of  Pezilla  :  a  jam- 
pot in  which  consecrated  wafers  had  been  hidden  during  the 
Revolution  gilded  itself. 

' "  Perhaps  there  was  a  little  yellow  colour  at  the  bottom 
coming  from  damp  !  " 

'  "■  No,  certainly  not !  I  tell  you  again,  no  !  The  gilding 
was  caused  by  the  contact  with  the  Eucharist." 

'  And  she  gave  the  attestations  of  Bishops  in  proof.  "  It  is, 
they  say,  like  a  buckler,  a — a  palladium  over  the  diocese  of 
Perpignan.     Ask  M.  Jeufroy  !  " 

'  Bouvard  could  not  stand  it  any  longer,  and  having  looked 
up  his  Louis  Hervieu,  took  Pecuchet  with  him. 

'  The  ecclesiastic  was  finishing  dinner.  Reine  offered  chairs, 
and  on  a  sign  she  went  and  fetched  two  liqueur-glasses,  which 
she  filled  with  Rosolio. 

*  After  this  Bouvard  revealed  what  brought  him. 

'  The  Abbe  did  not  reply  frankly. 


344  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  "  Everything  is  possible  with  God,  and  miracles  are  a  proof 
of  religion." 

'  "  There  are,  however,  laws." 

' "  That  is  neither  here  nor  there.  He  disturbs  them  to  in- 
struct, correct." 

' "  How  do  you  know  if  He  disturbs  them  ? "  continued 
Bouvard.  "  So  long  as  nature  follows  her  routine  one  does  not 
think  of  her,  but  in  an  extraordinary  phenomenon  we  see  the 
hand  of  God." 

' "  It  may  be  there,"  said  the  ecclesiastic ;  "  and  when  an 
event  is  proved  by  the  evidence  of  witnesses  .''  " 

'  "  The  witnesses  spoil  the  whole  thing,  for  there  are  false 
miracles." 

'The  priest  turned  red. 

' "  Doubtless,  sometimes." 

'  "  How  are  we  to  distinguish  them  from  the  true  ones  .''  And 
if  the  true  ones  given  in  proof  themselves  need  proof,  why  per- 
form them  .'' " 

'  Reine  intervened,  and  preaching  like  her  master,  said  that 
we  must  obey. 

' "  Life  is  a  passage,  but  death  is  etei'nal." 

' "  In  short,"  added  Bouvard,  rolling  the  Rosolio  in  his  mouth, 
"  the  miracles  of  other  days  are  no  better  demonstrated  than 
those  of  to-day ;  analogous  reasonings  defend  those  of  the 
Christians  and  of  the  Pagans." 

'The  cure  threw  the  fork  on  the  table. 

' "  Those  were  false,  yet  again !  no  miracles  outside  the 
Church  ! " 

' "  Stop,"  said  Pecuchet,  "  the  same  argument  as  for  the 
martyrs  :  the  doctrine  is  supported  by  the  facts,  and  the  facts  by 
the  doctrine." 

'  M.  Jeufroy  after  drinking  a  glass  of  water  resumed  :  "  Even 
while  you  deny  them,  you  believe  in  them.  The  world  that 
twelve  fishermen  converted — there — that  seems  to  me  a  fine 
miracle  ! " 

'  "  Not  at  all." 

'  Pecuchet  accounted  for  it  in  quite  another  manner. 

' "  Monotheism  comes  from  the  Hebrews,  the  Trinity  from 
India,  the  Word  is  in  Plato,  the  Virgin-mother  in  Asia." 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  345 

'  Never  mind  !  M.  Jeufroy  clung  to  the  supernatural,  would 
not  allow  that  Christianity  could  have  humanly  the  smallest 
reason  for  its  existence,  although  he  saw  anticipations  or 
deformations  of  it  in  all  nations.  The  impious  raillery  of  the 
eighteenth  century  he  could  have  put  up  with ;  but  modern 
criticism  with  its  politeness  exasperated  him. 

' "  I  prefer  the  atheist  who  blasphemes  to  the  sceptic  who 
cavils." 

'  Then  he  looked  at  them  with  an  air  of  bravado  as  if  to  dis- 
miss them. 

'  Pecuchet  went  away  in  low  spirits.  He  had  hoped  for  the 
reconciliation  of  faith  and  reason.' 

In  spite  of  his  wavering  devotion,  Pecuchet  still  continued 
to  visit  the  Faverges  family,  and  was  treated  to  edifying 
remarks  on  things  in  general  by  the  Count,  whose  favourite 
phrase  was,  '  It  ought  not  to  be  allowed.** 

'  Social  economy,  fine  arts,  literature,  history,  scientific  doc- 
trines, he  decided  on  all  in  his  quality  as  Christian,  and  head  of 
a  family ;  and  might  God  be  pleased  to  grant,  that  in  this  re- 
spect the  government  might  show  the  same  severity  as  he  dis- 
played in  his  family !  Power  alone  is  the  judge  of  the  dangers 
of  science  ;  spread  too  widely,  it  inspires  the  people  with  deadly 
ambitions.  It  was  more  happy,  was  this  poor  people,  when  the 
nobility  and  the  bishops  tempered  the  absolutism  of  the  King. 
Now  the  manufacturers  work  it  to  their  advantage.  It  is  on  the 
point  of  falling  into  slavery.' 

There  visited  at  the  chateau  in  these  days  one  M.  Mahurot, 
the  prospective  son-in-law  of  the  Count ;  one  day  on  arriv- 
ing Bouvard  and  Pe'cuchet  found  the  mayor  waiting  for  M. 
Jeufroy  to  fix  the  date  of  the  marriage,  which  was  to  take 
place  at  the  mayor's  office  before  the  ceremony  at  the  church, 
in  order  to  show  contempt  for  the  civil  marriage. 

Foureau  tried  to  defend  it.  The  Count  and  Hurel  attacked 
it.  What  was  a  municipal  function  in  comparison  with  a 
priesthood  ?  and  the  baron  would  not  have  believed  himself 


346  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

married  if  the  ceremony  had  only  taken  place  in  the  presence 
of  a  three-coloured  scarf. 

'  "  Bravo,"  said  M.  Jeufroy,  coming  in  ;  "  marriage  being  estab- 
lished by  Jesus." 

'  Pecuchet  stopped  him  :  "  In  which  Gospel  ?  In  the  Aposto- 
lic times  they  thought  so  meanly  of  it  that  Tertullian  compares 
it  to  adultery." 

'  "  Oh — pray." 

'  "  Certainly  !  and  it  is  not  a  sacrament !  A  sacrament  de- 
mands a  sign.     Show  me  the  sign  in  marriage  !  " 

'  In  vain  did  the  cure  reply  that  it  was  an  image  of  the  alli- 
ance of  God  with  the  Church.  "You  do  not  understand  even 
Christianity !  and  law." 

' "  Law  preserves  its  stamp/'  said  M.  de  Faverges ;  "  without 
it,  law  would  authorise  polygamy  !  " 

'  A  voice  replied  :  "  Where  would  the  harm  of  that  be .'' " 

'  It  was  Bouvard,  half  hidden  by  a  curtain. 

' "  One  may  have  several  wives,  like  the  patriarchs,  the  Mor- 
mons, the  Mussulmans,  and  none  the  less  be  an  honest  man !  " 

'  "  Never  !  "  cried  the  priest ;  "  honesty  consists  in  rendering 
that  which  is  due.  We  owe  homage  to  God.  Now,  he  who  is 
not  a  Christian  is  not  honest." 

'  "  As  honest  as  others,"  said  Bouvard. 

'  The  Count  thinking  that  he  saw  in  this  retort  an  attack  on 
religion,  exalted  it.     Religion  had  freed  the  slaves. 

'  Bouvard  cited  quotations  proving  the  contrary. 

'  "  Saint  Paul  recommended  them  to  obey  their  masters,  like 
Jesus.     Saint  Ambrose  calls  slaveiy  a  gift  of  God." 

'  "  Leviticus,  Exodus,  and  the  Councils  sanctioned  it.  Bossuet 
classes  it  among  the  rights  of  nations — and  Monseigneur  Bouvier 
approves  of  it." 

*  The  Count  objected  that  Christianity,  none  the  less,  had 
developed  civilisation. 

'  "  And  idleness,  in  making  a  virtue  of  poverty  !  " 

'  "Yet,  six- — the  morality  of  the  Gospels." 

'  "  Well,  well,  not  so  moral  after  all !  The  labourers  of  the 
last  hour  are  paid  as  much  as  those  of  the  first.  To  him  who 
hath  is  given,  and  from  him  who  hath  not  is  taken  away.     As 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  347 

for  the  precept  about  receiving  blows  without  returning  them, 
and  letting  one's  self  be  robbed,  it  encourages  the  bully,  the 
coward,  and  the  rascal." 

'  The  scandal  redoubled  when  Pecuchet  had  declared  that  he 
liked  Buddhism  as  well. 

'The  priest  burst  into  a  laugh.     " Buddhism." 

'  Madame  de  Noares  raised    her  arms  :  "  Buddhism  !  " 

'  *'  What  .  .  .  Buddhism  ! "  repeated  the  Count. 

'"Do  you  know  it?"  said  Pecuchet  to  M.  Jeufroy,  who  was 
in  a  fury. 

' ''  Well — learn  it :  better  than  Christianity,  and  before 
Christianity  it  recognised  the  nothingness  of  earthly  things.  Its 
practice  is  austere,  its  faithful  servants  more  numerous  than  all 
the  Christians,  and  as  for  incarnation,  Vishnu  has  not  had  one, 
but  nine  !    So  judge." 

'  "  Traveller's  lies,"  said  Madame  de  Noares. 

' "  Backed  up  by  the  freemasons,''  added  the  cure. 

'  And  all  speaking  at  once  :  "  Come  now — Come — Go  on  ! 
Very  fine  ! — I  think  that  absurd — Impossible — "  Insomuch  that 
Pecuchet  lost  his  temper,  and  declared  he  would  turn  Buddhist. 

' "  You  are  insulting  Christian  ladies  !  "  said  the  baron. 
Madame  de  Noares  sank  into  an  arm-chair.  The  Countess  and 
Yolande  held  their  peace.  The  Count  rolled  his  eyes.  Hurel 
was  waiting  for  orders.  The  Abbe  read  his  breviary  to  control 
himself.' 

Shortly  after  this  scene  the  friends  withdrew  along  with 
Foureau,  the  mayor  still  smarting  imder  the  insult  offered 
to  civil  marriage. 

The  children  of  Touache,  having  proved  intractable,  had 
been  handed  over  to  him  to  be  placed  in  a  reformatory. 
The  friends  begged  to  be  appointed  guardians  to  these 
children  ;  to  educate  them  would  be  a  new  interest  in  life  ; 
visions  of  affectionate  young  creatures  growing  into  grace 
under  their  care  made  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  look  forward 
sentimentally  to  the  future. 

Foureau,  to  spite  the  Faverges  family,  promised  to  send 
the  children. 


348  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  On  returning  home  they  found  Marcel  (their  man-servant)  at 
the  foot  of  the  staircase -.under  the  Madonna,  on  his  knees,  praying 
with  fei-vour.  His  head  thrown  back,  his  eyes  half-closed,  his 
hare-lip  parted,  he  had  the  appearance  of  a  Fakir  in  ecstasy. 

' "  What  a  brute  beast ! "  said  Bouvard. 

' "  Why  ?  He  perhaps  is  witnessing  things  which  you  would 
envy  him,  if  you  could  see  them.  Are  there  not  two  totally 
distinct  worlds  ?  The  subject  of  a  method  of  reasoning  has  less 
value  than  the  manner  of  reasoning.  What  does  the  belief 
matter .''     The  important  thing  is  to  believe.'' 

'  Such  were  the  objections  of  Pecuchet  to  the  remark  of 
Bouvard.' 

Victor  and  Vietorine  duly  arrived  ;  as  also  did  several 
books  on  education,  from  which  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet 
learned  that  one  must  banish  every  metaphysical  idea  and 
follow  the  natural  development  according  to  the  experi- 
mental method. 

Bouvard,  as  might  have  been  expected,  took  charge  of  the 
girl,  Pecuchet  of  the  boy. 

Reading  and  writing  proved  to  be  things  that  are  not 
learned  as  a  matter  of  course;  the  children  yawned,  were 
irritable,  fell  asleep.  '  Perhaps  they  were  ill  ?  Too  severe 
a  tension  injures  the  youthful  brain.' 

As  soon  as  the  children  felt  at  home  they  made  havoc  of 
the  garden.  It  was  necessary  to  provide  them  with  amuse- 
ments. Rousseau  recommends  that  the  tutor  should  teach 
the  child  to  make  its  own  toys ;  but  neither  Bouvard  nor 
Pecuchet  had  the  skill  necessary  to  construct  the  simplest 
plaything.  Fenelon  recommends  from  time  to  time  '  an 
innocent  conversation."*  They  could  not  by  any  possibility 
invent  a  single  one. 

By  playing  on  the  greediness  of  the  boy  and  the  vanity  of 
the  girl  they  succeeded  in  inducing  them  to  read  and  write. 
But  what  next  ? 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  349 

'  Before  proceeding  to  instruct  a  child  one  should  know  its 
aptitudes.  They  can  be  guessed  by  means  of  phrenology. 
They  immersed  themselves  in  it;  then  wished  to  verify  its 
assertions  upon  their  own  persons.  Bouvard  had  the  bump  of 
benevolence  to  show — imagination,  veneration,  and  amorous 
energy,  commonly  called  erotism.  On  the  temples  of  Pecuchet 
were  found  philosophy  and  enthusiasm,  joined  with  a  tendency 
to  dissimulation.  Such  actually  were  their  characters.  What 
surprised  them  more  was  to  recognise  in  the  one  as  in  the  other 
the  inclination  to  friendship;  and  charmed  at  the  discovery 
they  embraced  one  another  affectionately.' 

In  order  to  gain  experience  they  took  to  examining  the 
heads  of  the  country-folk  on  market  days ;  and  scandalised 
the  cure  by  holding  their  sessions  in  the  porch  of  the  church. 
'  Phrenology,  according  to  M.  Jeufroy,  denied  divine  omni- 
potence, and  it  is  indecent  to  practise  it  under  the  shadow 
of  the  holy  place,  in  the  very  face  of  the  altar.''  He  drove 
them  away,  and  they  established  themselves  at  the  barber"'s, 
where  they  encountered  Vaucorbeil,  the  doctor.  He  poured 
contempt  on  their  new  science,  which  was  not  supported  by 
anatomy ;  and  yet  in  his  presence  they  made  a  correct  state- 
ment of  the  characters  of  three  separate  individuals.  The 
doctor  went  out,  and  slammed  the  door  behind  him. 

A  subsequent  examination  of  the  heads  of  the  two  children 
afflicted  them  ;  but — 

'  One  should  understand  the  exact  meaning  of  words ;  what 
is  called  combativeness  implies  a  contempt  for  death.  If  it 
causes  homicide,  it  can  also  produce  heroic  rescues.  Acquisi- 
tiveness includes  both  the  skill  of  the  pickpocket  and  the 
ardour  of  the  merchant.  Irreverence  runs  parallel  with  the 
spirit  of  criticism,  craft  with  circumspection.  An  instinct  is 
always  divided  into  two  parts,  a  bad  one  and  a  good  one.  The 
first  can  be  destroyed  by  cultivating  the  second,  and  in  this  way 
an  audacious  child,  far  from  being  a  bandit,  will  become  a 
general.  The  coward  will  have  only  prudence,  the  avaricious 
man  economy,  the  prodigal  generosity. 


350  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  A  magnificent  dream  took  possession  of  them ;  if  they 
succeeded  with  the  education  of  their  pupils  they  would  found 
later  on  an  establishment  whose  aim  would  be  to  correct  the 
intelligence,  chasten  the  character,  ennoble  the  heart.  They 
already  talked  of  subscriptions  and  the  buildings.' 

The  policeman  asked  them  to  try  the  head  of  his  son. 
The  results  of  the  examination  were  mortifying,  and  Placque- 
vent  comforted  himself  by  remarking  that  for  all  that,  the 
boy  would  do  what  his  father  pleased.  This  led  to  a  con- 
versation on  parental  rights  and  filial  duties. 

'  According  to  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  children  owed  nothing 
to  the  authors  of  their  being ;  their  parents,  on  the  other  hand, 
owe  them  food,  education,  advice,  everything. 

'The  good  folk  protested  against  this  immoral  doctrine. 
Placquevent  was  outraged  by  it,  as  though  by  an  insult.' 

Soon  afterwards  they  found  Placquevent  cruelly  cuffing 
his  son's  head  ;  they  reproved  him  ;  he  replied  that  he  had  a 
right  to  do  what  he  pleased  with  his  own. 

Determined  to  show  an  example  to  other  people  they  set 
about  the  instruction  of  the  two  children  with  redoubled 
activity.  Pecuchet  demonstrated  the  meaning  of  geographi- 
cal terms  with  a  watering-pot  and  some  sand ;  but  Victor 
could  not  remember  what  he  was  told.  Then  Pecuchet  tried 
astronomy ;  he  put  an  arm-chair  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
and  began  to  waltz  around  it :  '  Imagine  that  this  arm-chair 
is  the  sun,  and  that  I  am  the  earth ;  this  is  the  way  it 
moves."  Victor  looked  at  him  full  of  consternation.  Then 
he  took  an  orange,  pushed  a  stick  through  it  to  represent 
the  poles,  then  surrounded  it  with  a  charcoal  line  to  mark 
the  equator.  After  this  he  moved  the  orange  round  a  candle, 
making  him  observe  that  all  parts  of  the  surface  were  not 
illuminated  simultaneously,  which  produces  the  difference 
of  climates;    and   for  that  of  the  seasons    he   sloped   the 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  351 

orange,  for  the  earth  does  not  stand  straight,  which  is  the 
cause  of  the  equinoxes  and  the  solstice. 

Victor  had  not  understood  in  the  least.  '  He  believed  the 
earth  twirls  on  a  long  rod,  and  that  the  equator  is  a  ring 
enclosing  its  circumference.  "* 

Failing  with  geography,  Pecuchet  went  on  to  history,  but 
Victor  could  never  learn  the  names  and  dates  of  the  kings  of 
France;  and  his  tutor  came  to  the  conclusion  that  history 
can  only  be  learned  by  reading  a  great  deal. 

Drawing  would  obviously  be  a  useful  accomplishment,  and 
Pecuchet  boldly  set  to  work  to  qualify  himself  to  be  drawing- 
master  ,  but  without  success ;  he  never  knew  when  to  apply 
the  '  master  stroke.'' 

'  The  sciences  can  be  taught  in  connection  with  the  commonest 
objects;  say,  for  example,  what  wine  is  made  of;  and  the  ex- 
planation being  given,  Victor  and  Victorine  had  to  repeat  it. 
It  was  the  same  with  groceries,  furniture,  illumination ;  but 
light  for  them  was  only  the  lamp,  and  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  spark  from  a  flint,  the  flame  of  a  candle,  the  brightness 
of  the  moon. 

'  One  day  Victorine  asked,  "  What  makes  wood  burn  ?  "  Her 
masters  looked  at  one  another  in  confusion  ;  the  theory  of  com- 
bustion was  beyond  them.' 

And  then  a  more  serious  difficulty  showed  itself: 

*  If  one  starts  with  facts,  the  simplest  requires  too  complicated 
explanations,  and  if  one  lays  down  principles  first,  one  begins 
with  the  absolute,  with  faith. 

'  How  can  this  be  solved  ?  By  combining  the  two  methods  of 
instruction,  the  rational  and  the  empirical ;  but  a  double  means 
to  one  end  is  the  reverse  of  methodical.     So  much  the  worse. 

'  To  initiate  them  in  natural  histoiy  they  ti'ied  scientific  ex- 
cursions. "You  see,"  said  they,  pointing  to  an  ass,  a  horse,  an 
ox,  "  beasts  with  four  legs,  they  are  called  quadrupeds.  Gene- 
rally speaking,  birds  have  feathers,  reptiles  scales,  and  butter- 
flies belong  to  the  class  of  insects." 


352     LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

*  Then  came  the  turn  of  botany.  Pecuchet  wrote  this  axiom 
upon  the  blackboard: — "Every  plant  has  leaves,  a  calyx,  and 
a  corolla,  enclosing  an  ovary  or  pericarp,  which  contains  the 
seed." 

'  Then  he  ordered  his  pupils  to  go  botanising  in  the  country 
and  pluck  the  first  flowers  they  found. 

'Victor  brought  him  buttercups,  Victorine  a  tuft  of  straw- 
berries.    He  sought  in  vain  for  the  pericarp. 

'  Bouvard,  who  distrusted  his  knowledge,  rummaged  in  the 
whole  library  and  discovered,  in  the  Redoide  des  Dairies  the 
picture  of  an  iris,  in  which  the  ovaries  were  not  situated  in 
the  corolla,  but  beneath  the  petals  in  the  stem. 

*  There  were  in  the  garden  some  burdocks  and  lilies  of  the 
valley  in  flower ;  these  rubiaceae  had  no  calyx ;  therefore  the 
principle  placed  on  the  blackboard  was  false. 

* "  It  is  an  exception,"  said  Pecuchet. 

*  But  chance  caused  them  to  discover  a  field-madder  in  the 
grass,  and  it  had  a  calyx. 

'  "  Oh,  come  !  if  the  exceptions  themselves  are  not  true,  where 
has  one  any  confidence  whatever  ? "  ' 

At  this  time  an  educational  visit  to  their  farm  brought 
Bouvard  into  affectionate  relations  again  with  Madame 
Bordin,  and  there  is  no  knowing  what  might  have  happened 
had  not  the  farmer's  horse  got  entangled  in  the  drying-lines 
and  brought  down  the  whole  weekly  wash.  The  farmer  beat 
his  horse  brutally  ;  Bouvard  protested.  '  It  is  mine,**  said 
the  peasant. 

Pecuchet  then  embarked  on  a  course  of  morality  ;  Bouvard 
attended  the  first  lecture  with  the  children. 

*  This  science  teaches  us  how  to  direct  our  actions.  They 
have  two  motives :  pleasure,  interest ;  and  a  third  still  more 
imperious,  duty. 

'  Duties  are  divided  into  two  classes  : — (1)  Duties  to  ourselves, 
which  consist  in  taking  care  of  our  bodies,  protecting  ourselves 
from  all  injury.     They  understood  that  perfectly.     (2)  "Duties 


IJFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  353 

towards  others,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  always  loyal,  good-humoured, 
and  even  fraternal,  the  human  race  being  one  single  family. 
Often  a  thing  pleases  us  which  injures  our  equals  ;  interest 
differs  from  good,  for  good  is  in  itself  irreducible."  The  children 
did  not  understand.  He  put  off  the  sanction  of  duties  till  the 
next  time. 

'In  all  that,  according  to  Bouvard,  he  had  not  defined  "the  good." 
'  "  How  would  you  that  we  should  define  it  ?  one  feels  it." 
'  Then  these  lessons  in  morality  would  only  suit  moral  people, 
and  Pecuchet's  course  went  no  further.' 

The  effect  of  rewards  and  punishments  being  tried  upon 
the  childi-en,  they  were  found  to  be  delighted  with  praise,  but 
indifferent  to  blame. 

In  order  to  make  them  kind-hearted,  they  were  given  a 
black  cat.     Victor  boiled  it  alive.     '  It  was  his  own." 

Things  went  from  bad  to  worse;  the  friends  consulted 
Bentham. 

'In  order  that  a  punishment  be  good,  it  should  be  propor- 
tioned to  the  fault,  its  natural  consequence.  Has  the  child 
broken  a  window,  it  should  not  be  mended,  let  him  suffer  from 
cold ;  if  he  asks  for  food  when  he  is  not  hungry,  give  it  him, 
indigestion  will  soon  bring  repentance ;  if  he  is  idle,  let  him 
remain  without  work,  boredom  will  soon  bring  him  back  to  it. 

'  But  Victor  would  not  suffer  from  cold,  his  constitution  could 
support  excesses,  and  idleness  would  suit  him.' 

Victor  even  destroyed  the  cherished  coco-nut  of  Pecuchet, 
the  companion  of  his  life.  Pecuchet  forgot  himself,  and 
delivered  a  blow  which  hurled  Victor  to  the  earth,  who  rose 
in  terror,  fled  to  his  room,  and  locked  himself  in.  Fearing 
that  he  might  commit  suicide,  Bouvard  negotiated  with  him, 
and  the  bribe  of  a  plum-tart  induced  him  to  open  the  door. 

'  From  that  time  he  grew  worse.  There  remained  a  method 
highly  extolled  by  Monseigneur  Dupanloup :  "  the  severe 
stare";  they  tried  to  impress  a  terrific  aspect  upon  their 
countenances,  and  produced  no  effect. 

'  "  We  have  nothing  left  but  to  try  religion/'  said  Bouvard. 

z 


354  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'Pecuchet  protested.  They  had  banished  it  from  their 
programme.' 

None  the  less  the  children  were  sent  to  catechism,  and 
Mademoiselle  Reine  once  more  shed  the  light  of  her  gracious 
countenance  upon  the  establishment. 

But  Victor  beat  the  son  of  the  lawyer,  and  Victorine 
made  love  to  him. 

A  pedagogical  mania  now  began  to  rage  in  the  breasts  of 
the  friends ;  they  were  prepared  to  teach  everything  and 
everybody  ;  they  protested  against  the  habit  of  crucifying 
owls,  wlio  destroy  mice ;  but  when  they  went  further  into 
the  habits  of  animals  they  discovered  that  '  sparrows  cleanse 
the  cabbage-garden,  but  swallow  cherries.  Owls  eat  insects, 
and  also  bats,  which  are  useful ;  and  if  moles  devour  slugs 
they  upset  the  soil ;  of  one  thing  they  were  certain,  that  all 
game  should  be  destroyed  as  being  baneful  to  agriculture.' 

This  last  dogma  brought  them  into  collision  with  Sorel, 
the  gamekeeper,  whom  they  found  arresting  a  poacher. 
Their  efforts  on  behalf  of  this  ill-used  personage  brought 
them  before  the  magistrates,  who  fined  them.  They  began 
to  make  political  speeches  in  the  public-house. 

'As  they  were  accused  of  ignorance  of  practical  life,  of  a 
tendency  to  levelHng  down,  and  to  immorality,  they  developed 
these  three  conceptions  :  to  replace  the  family  name  by  a 
registered  number ;  to  arrange  the  Fi-ench  people  in  a  hier- 
archy ;  in  order  to  keep  one's  place,  it  would  be  necessary  from 
time  to  time  to  submit  to  an  examination  ;  no  more  punish- 
ments, no  more  rewards,  but  a  special  record  in  every  village, 
which  would  be  handed  down  to  posterity. 

'  Contempt  was  poured  on  their  system.  They  made  an 
article  about  it  for  the  Bayeux  daily  paper,  drew  up  a  note  to 
the  Prefect,  a  petition  to  the  Chambers,  a  memorial  to  the 
Emperoi*. 

'  The  paper  did  not  insert  their  article. 

'  The  Prefect  did  not  condescend  to  reply. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  355 

'  The  Chambers  were  dumb,  and  for  a  long  time  they  waited 
for  a  scrap  of  paper  from  the  Tuileries. 

'  How  in  the  world  was  the  Emperor  spending  his  time  ? 
Doubtless  with  women. 

'  Foureau,  on  behalf  of  the  Sub-Prefect,  recommended  them 
a  little  more  reserve.' 

They  plunged  into  plans  for  the  improvement  of  Chavi- 
gnolles,  planned  a  hospital,  slaughter-houses,  a  church. 
Pecuchet  could  not  sleep  for  thinking  of  Haussmann. 

Victor  and  Victorine  meanwhile  gradually  became  intoler- 
able ;  the  former  was  proved  guilty  of  theft,  the  latter  of 
even  worse  ;  and  suddenly  there  came  a  letter  from  the  wife 
of  Pecuchet's  old  friend,  Dumouchel,  asking  for  information 
about  sea-bathing  on  the  coast  of  Normandy  :  where  was  to 
be  found  the  best  society,  the  least  noise  ?  What  were  the 
means  of  transport,  the  cost  of  washing,  etc.  etc.  ? 

But  the  friends  were  too  far  gone  on  their  schemes  for 
ameliorating  humanity  to  pay  any  attention  to  such  trivial 
details ;  having  failed  in  the  education  of  children  they 
projected  a  course  of  lectures  for  adults. 

They  had  some  difficulty  in  securing  a  room  for  the  pur- 
pose, but  eventually  persuaded  the  innkeeper  to  allow  them 
the  larger  hall  of  the  Golden  Cross.  They  betook  themselves 
to  the  inn,  dressed  with  unusual  care. 

(At  this  point  the  completed  ms.  ends,  but  the  outline  of 
the  remainder  of  this  chapter  is  in  existence.) 

' .  .  .  and  met  a  large  audience.  Pecuchet  spoke  pedanti- 
cally of  the  faults  of  the  Government  and  administration  ; 
Bouvard  familiarly ;  the  meeting  broke  up  in  great  confusion. 

'  The  next  morning  they  discoursed  over  their  breakfast. 
Pecuchet  saw  the  future  of  mankind  in  dark  colours.  The 
modern  man  has  grown  smaller,  and  become  a  machine.  He 
expected  the  final  anarchy  of  the  human  race,  and  reasoned  of 
the  impossibility  of  peace. 


356  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

'  Owing  to  the  excesses  of  individualism  and  the  delirium 
of  science  bai-barism  will  ensue.  He  laid  down  three  hypo- 
theses :  First,  Pantheistic  radicalism  will  break  every  tie  with 
the  past,  and  an  inhuman  despotism  will  ensue  ;  second,  if 
the  theistic  absolutism  triumphs,  the  libei-alism  with  which 
humanity  has  been  imbued  since  the  Revolution  succumbs,  all 
is  reversed  ;  third,  if  the  convulsions  which  have  been  going 
on  since  '89  continue,  oscillating  endlessly  between  two  ex- 
tremes, these  oscillations  will  carry  us  away  by  their  own  forces. 
There  will  no  longer  be  ideal,  religion,  morality. 

'  America  will  have  conquered  the  earth. 

'  Future  of  literature. 

'  Universal  meanness. 

'There  will  no  longer  be  anything  but  a  vast  guzzling  of 
operatives. 

'  End  of  the  world  by  cessation  of  caloric. 

'  Bouvard,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  the  future  of  humanity 
in  rose-colour. 

'  The  modern  man  is  in  progress. 

'  Europe  will  be  regenerated  by  Asia,  the  law  of  history 
being  that  civilisation  goes  from  east  to  west ;  the  part  to 
be  played  by  China ;  the  two  humanities  will  eventually  be 
mingled. 

'  Inventions  of  the  future  ;  methods  of  travelling.  Balloons. 
Submarine  boats  with  glass  windows,  which  will  move  in  a 
perpetual  calm,  the  motion  of  the  waves  being  only  superficial. 
Fish  will  be  seen  passing  by,  and  landscapes  at  the  bottom  of 
the  ocean.  All  animals  will  be  domesticated,  all  methods  of 
agriculture  exploited. 

'The  future  of  literature ;  the  opposite  of  industrial  literature. 
The  future  of  science — magnetic  force  will  be  regulated. 

'  Paris  will  become  a  winter  gax-den  ;  fruit-trees  on  the  Boule- 
vards. The  Seine  warmed  and  filtered  ;  artificial  precious  stones 
will  abound  ;  gilt  everywhere  ;  houses  lighted  by  new  methods 
— indeed,  light  will  be  stored  ;  there  are  bodies  possessing  this 
property,  such  as  sugar,  the  flesh  of  certain  molluscs,  Bologna 
phosphorus.  People  will  be  obliged  to  daub  the  front  of  their 
houses  with  luminous  paint,  and  the  radiation  will  light  up  the 
streets. 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT  357 

'Evil  will  disappear  because  there  will  be  no  need  for  evil. 
Philosophy  will  be  a  religion. 

'  Union  of  all  nations.  Public  festivities.  We  shall  travel 
to  the  heavenly  bodies ;  and,  when  the  earth  is  worn  out, 
humanity  will  decamp  to  the  stars. 

*  These  glorious  anticipations  were  rudely  interrupted  by  the 
arrival  of  the  police  with  a  warrant  from  the  Sub-Prefect  to 
arrest  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet. 

'  In  the  midst  of  the  hubbub  Dumouchel  and  his  wife  turned 
up  on  their  way  to  sea ;  gradually  the  whole  village  penetrated 
into  the  garden  and  house.  Barberou  appeared  in  time  to  hear 
Bouvard  accused  by  Gorju  of  having  seduced  Melie ;  and 
believed  him  guilty. 

•'  Eventually  the  friends  undertook  to  reform  themselves, 
and  a  second  warrant  from  the  Sub-Prefect  was  exhibited  by 
Foureau,  empowering  hira  to  accept  their  submission.  Bouvard 
pensioned  Melie.  The  children  were  removed  by  the  mayor, 
and  showed  a  revolting  insensibility  on  being  taken  away, 
insomuch  that  Bouvard  and  Pecuchet  wept. 

'  So  everything  had  failed  in  their  hands  ;  and  they  had  no 
further  interest  in  life. 

'  A  good  idea  was,  however,  secretly  cherished  by  both  of 
them ;  for  some  time  they  dissembled ;  at  last  they  simul- 
taneously disclosed  it. 

'  "^  Copy  as  they  used  to." 

'They  bought  a  double  desk,  books,  pens,  sandaracum, 
erasers,  and  so  forth,  and  set  to  work.' 

Thus  did  Flaubert  propose  that  the  first  part  of  his 
'revenge"'  should  end.  The  second  part  was  to  contain  a 
carefully  classified  list  of  all  the  contradictions  and  absurdi- 
ties that  he  had  encountered  in  his  reading.  On  the  whole, 
it  is  perhaps  fortunate  that  he  did  not  live  to  carry  out  this 
idea  ;  which  is  in  itself  inartistic.  There  are  not  many  men 
who  would  have  the  patience  to  read  an  encyclopaedia  of 
errors. 

One  difficulty  may  occur  to  the  reader  of  the  foregoing 
abstract  of  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet-^  after  all,  the  friends  are 


358  LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 

not  complete  fools ;  they  are  not  invariably  mistaken. 
Flaubert  was  too  skilful  an  artist  to  make  such  an  oversight 
as  this  ;  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  the  work  is  that  the 
reader  has  continually  to  exert  his  own  acuteness  in  order  to 
see  where  the  satire  is  bearing  ;  and  in  this  way  its  interest 
is  maintained.  The  friends,  moreover,  by  the  mere  fact  that 
they  do  take  trouble  to  learn,  are  always  superior  to  the 
men  of  accepted  opinions  around  them.  Bouvard  not  unfre- 
quently  says  exactly  the  right  thing.  And  this  is  perhaps 
an  additional  stroke  of  satire,  that  the  right  thing  should  be 
not  unfrequently  said  by  the  man  whom  the  ordinary  person 
writes  down  fool. 

Li  what  sense  is  this  book  '  a  revenge  \?  'Of  what,**  asks 
Maxime  Ducamp,  '  had  Flaubert  to  avenge  himself  ?  ' 

Personally  of  nothing,  but  in  the  name  of  knowledge  and 
earnestness,  of  the  levity  and  ignorance  which  take  the  chief 
places  in  the  synagogue. 

Decordes  was  a  fool ;  Louis  Bouilhet  was  something  near 
to  a  genius  ;  but  Decordes  was  the  poet  beloved  of  Rouen. 

Everywhere  in  life  we  meet  with  the  man  who  has  not 
attempted  to  learn,  with  the  man  who  has  been  content 
to  smatter,  who  has  swallowed  manuals,  attended  popular 
lectures,  and  these  with  one  accord  pass  judgment,  com- 
mendatory or  the  reverse,  upon  the  student  whose  life  has 
been  given  to  learning.  It  was  the  student  whom  Flaubert 
wished  to  avenge  upon  the  multitude,  not  himself  only,  but 
all  those  who  recognise  the  sacred  obligation  of  fearlessly, 
earnestly  inquiring  after  the  truth. 


INDEX 


Acropolis,   Madame  Colet's  poem 

on  the,  148. 
Adramites,  the,  97. 
Aksar,  the  Python,  97. 
Alexandria,  Flaubert's  description  of, 

102,  103. 
Amyot,  Sieur,  16. 
Anatomy,    study  of,   commenced   by 

'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  308. 
Andelys,  Les,  i,  2,  7,  17. 
Angelo,  Michael,  151. 
Angouleme,    Duke    of,     history    of, 

written  by  '  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,' 

317-320. 
ApoUonius  of  Tyana,  89. 
Arabs,   Flaubert  on  the  manners  of 

the,  106. 
Archaeology,    study    of,   commenced 

by   'Bouvard    et    Pecuchet,'   315, 

316. 
Arcontics,  the,  87. 
Aristophanes,  75,  248,  296. 
Arnoux,  Madame,  138. 
Aromates,  the,  97. 
Art,  Flaubert  on,  143,  144. 
'  Art  for  Art's  sake,'  245-248. 
Athens,    Meeting    of    Flaubert    and 

English  midshipmen  at,  119. 
Azvedo,  151,  152. 

Bedmaker,  Dialogue  with  the,  21, 

22. 
Bekker,  The  'Charicles'  of,  217. 
Bentham,  quoted,  353. 
Beranger,  Flaubert  on,  35,  61,  78. 
Bertha,  Madame  Bovary's  daughter, 

169,  171,  174. 


Binet,  in  Madame  Bovary,  189,  192. 

Bordin,  Widow,  character  in '  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,'  306,  309,  316,  320, 
321,  322,  324,  330. 

Botany,  Flaubert  and  the  study  of, 
299,  300  ;  '  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet ' 
attempt  to  teach,  352. 

Bouilhet,  Louis,  poet,  friend  of  Flau- 
bert, 6,  43  ;  account  of,  54-58  ;  on 
Flaubert  as  a  poet,  74  ;  his  opinion 
of  Flaubert's  '  St.  Anthony,'  83 ; 
Flaubert's  letter  to,  from  Cairo, 
103,  104 ;  Flaubert's  second  letter 
to,  from  Cairo,  106,  107 ;  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  on  literary  ques- 
tions, 113,  114;  letter  from  Flaubert 
to,  on  the  changes  in  Eastern  life, 
118,  119;  Madame  Colet's  jealousy 
of,  152  ;  manuscript  of  '  Madame 
Bovary'  submitted  to,  192  ;  corres- 
pondence of  Flaubert  with,  anent 
material  for  '  Madame  Bovary,' 
196,  197,  198;  death  of,  238; 
friendship  between  Flaubert  and, 
236,  240  ;  Flaubert's  preface  to  the 
posthumous  volume  of  poems  of, 
241-244;  cold  reception  of  his 
posthumous  poems,  269  ;  proposed 
memorial  to,  248;  Flaubert's  regrets 
for  the  death  of,  254 ;  mentioned, 
80,  84,99,  "5.  127,  129,  132,  133, 
134,  136,  138,  148,  153,  154,  155, 
156,  270,  282,  284,  291,  358. 

Boulanger,  M.  Rodolph,  character  in 
'Madame  Bovary,'  176,  177,  l8g, 
191. 

Bournisien,      Abbe,     in      'Madame 


360 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


Bovary,'  173,   179,   191,  192,  237  ; 

administers   the    last  sacrament  to 

Madame  Bovary,  190,  191. 
'  Bouvard    et    Pecuchet,'    Flaubert's 

labours  on,  287 ;  Flaubert's  method 

of  working  on,  298,  299 ;  the  plot 

of,  304,  305  ;  conclusion  of,  300  ; 

summary  of  the  story  of,  305-358  ; 

criticism    of    the    work,    301-305 ; 

mentioned,    16,    43,    44,    99,    271, 

284,  290,  293. 
Breughel's   picture  of  St.    Anthony'.s 

Temptation,  36,  280, 
Brittany,     Tour     by     Flaubert     and 

Ducamp   through,    69 ;    Flaubert's 

health  benefited  by  tour  in,  77. 
Bruyere,  La,  quoted,  295. 
Buddha,  89. 
Buffon,  quoted,  241. 
Byron,  Lord,  mentioned,  12,  37,  148, 

296. 

C/F.SAR,  the  first,  33. 

Cainites,  the,  87. 

Cairo,  Flaubert's   description   of  his 

life  at,  103,  104. 
Cambremer,  Mademoiselle,  5. 
'Candidate,  the,' Flaubert's  comedy 

of,  271,  286,  287. 
Carlyle,  mentioned,    127,    247,    301, 

302. 
Carpocratians,  the,  87. 
Carthage,    the    scene    of    Flaubert's 

Salammbo,  202 ;  visited  by  Flaubert, 

122. 
Catoblepas,  the,  95,  96. 
Cervantes,  mentioned,  296,  301,  302. 
Charpentier,  298. 
Chase,    mediaeval     saints    connected 

with  the,  272. 
Chateaubriand,    mentioned,     12,    37, 

296 ;  the  tomb  of,  at  St.  Malo,  74. 
Chatelet,  Madame,  Madame  Colet's 

life  of,  136. 
Chemistry,   study  of,  commenced  by 

'Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  307. 
Chevalier,  Ernest,  letters  of  Gustave 


Flaubert  to,  i,  2  ;  intimate  friend 
of  Flaubert,  6,  8  ;  letter  from  Flau- 
bert to,  anent  his  theatre,  7  ;  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  on  the  censorship 
of  the  stage,  13  ,  goes  to  Paris  to 
read  law,  16 ;  further  letter  to,  in 
Paris,  22-24  ;  Flaubert's  letter  to, 
on  student  life  in  Quartier  Latin, 
30 ;  letter  to,  from  Flaubert,  44  ; 
his  marriage,  118;  congratulated 
by  Flaubert  on  his  marriage,  120. 

Churches,  Flaubert's  reflections  on 
provincial,  72,  73. 

Circoncellions,  the,  87. 

Cloots,  Anarchist,  290,  291. 

Cloquet,  Dr.  Jules,  19,  82 ;  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  anent  the  prosecu- 
tion of  '  Madame  Bovary,'  201. 

Colet,  Madame  Louise,  Ducamp's 
account  of  her  literary  works,  etc., 
129-133,  135  ;  her  '  Lui  et  Elle,' 
129  ;  her  '  Une  liistoire  de  Soldat,' 
135;  her  '  Lui,'  129,  133,  135  ; 
her  'Elle  et  Lui,'  129;  Flaubert's 
correspondence  with,  138-155  ;  her 
'La  Sei-vante'  (poem),  135;  her 
'La  Servante'  (prose),  133,  135; 
her  life  of  Madame  Chatelet,  136  ; 
her  poem  on  the  Acropolis,  14S  ; 
specimen  of  her  poetical  powers, 
150;  her  love  for  Flaubert,  133, 
134;  Flaubert's  admiration  for, 
^37f  138;  her  jealousy  of  Bouilhet, 
152;  Ducamp's  epitaph  on,  133; 
her  death  in  1875,  I33>  I35- 

Collier,   Admiral,    family    of,  9,  25  ; 

Miss  Gertrude.  6'(;eTennant,  Mrs. 

Colosseum,  the,  88. 

Commanville,  Madame,  27  ;  descrip- 
tion of  Flaubert's  home-life  at 
Croisset  by,  123-126  ;  letter  to, 
announcing  speedy  end  of  '  Bou- 
vard et  Pecuchet,'  300. 

M.,  failure  of,  270;  Flaubert's 

generosity  to,  2S8. 

Comte,  Auguste,  Flaubert's  opinion 
of  his  philosophy,  113,  285. 


INDEX 


361 


Coptic    bishop   in   Cairo,    Flaubert's 

visit  to  the,  105. 
Cormenin,  Louis  de,  132  ;  letter  from 

Flaubert  to,  34-36. 
Corneille,  Pierre,  282,   296 ;  quoted, 

241. 
Cousin,  Victor,  133,  136. 
Croisset,   Flaubert's  removal  to,  37, 

38;    Flaubert's  home  life  at,   122- 

126. 
Cruchard,  name  assumed  by  Flaubert, 

281,  286,  287,  288. 
Rev.  Father,  sham  autobiography 

of,  20. 
Cynocephali,  the,  95. 

Damis,  follower  of  Apollonius,  89. 

Danseh,  the  ceremony  of  the,  107, 
108. 

Dante,  mentioned,  304. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  270,  298. 

Death,  Flaubert  on,  41,  42. 

Decorde,  M.,  of  Rouen,  291. 

Delaunay,  a  pupil  of  Dr.  Flaubert, 
100,  178;  the  prototype  of  Bovary 
in  '  Madame  Bovary,'  157,  158. 

Derozerays,  M.,in  'Madame Bovary,' 
177. 

Devil,  the,  in  Flaubert's  '  St.  An- 
thony,' 85,  92,  93,  94. 

Dickens,  mentioned,  247  ;  Flaubert 
on  the  '  Pickwick '  of,  281. 

Dictionary  of  accepted  opinions, 
Flaubert's,  113,  304. 

Don  Quixote,  147. 

Ducamp,  Maxime,  his  description  of 
Flaubert  at  age  of  twenty-one,  20 ; 
his  description  of  Flaubert's  law 
studies,  25,  26 ;  his  description  of 
Flaubert's  life  in  Paris,  27  ;  travels 
with  Flaubert,  32 ;  account  of  his 
friendship  for  Flaubert,  33,  34 ; 
letter  from  Flaubert  to,  on  death  of 
Caroline  Flaubert,  38-40 ;  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  on  death,  future 
life,  and  his  plans  for  future  work, 
40-42 ;    on  Flaubert's  love  for  his 


mother,  44,  45  ;  tour  through  Brit- 
tany with  Flaubert,  69  et  seq.  ; 
wounded  in  the  tumults  of  1848, 
72 ;  proposed  eastern  tour  with 
Flaubert,  82  ;  on  the  temptation 
of  St.  Anthony,  83 ;  his  criticism 
of  Flaubert's  'St.  Anthony,'  96; 
eastern  journey  with  Flaubert,  loi; 
his  care  of  Flaubert,  103 ;  account 
of  incident  between  Flaubert  and 
himself  in  the  desert,  no,  in; 
receives  letter  from  Madame  Flau- 
bert imploring  their  return,  114; 
his  epitaph  on  Madame  Colet,  133; 
his  'Souvenirs  Litteraires,'  134; 
his  slight  control  over  Flaubert, 
137  ;  manuscript  of  '  Madame 
Bovary'  submitted  to,  192  ;  '  Ma- 
dame Bovary'  sent  to,  198;  his 
opinion  of  Flaubert's  Salammbo, 
202 ;  letter  from  Flaubert  to,  after 
the  death  of  Bouilhet,  239  ;  letter 
from  Flaubert  on  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  to,  259,  260 ;  men- 
tioned, 43,  66,  84,  99,  107,  120, 
156,  178,  182,  183,  244,  248,  271, 
280,  35S. 

Dupanloup,  Monseigneur,  17;  Flau- 
bert's opinion  of,  292. 

Duplan,  Jules,  Flaubert's  letter  to, 
239- 

Dupuis,  M.  Leon,  a  character  in 
'Madame  Bovary,'  166,  167,  169, 
170,  174,  179,  180,  181,  187,  188, 
189,  191. 

'  Education  Sentimentale,'  ac- 
count of  Flaubert's,  221,  251-254  ; 
mentioned,  16,  33,  46,  98,  240. 

Egypt,  English  occupation  of,  pre- 
dicted, 106. 

Eliot,  George,  194,  195,  247. 

'  Elle  et  Lui,'  Louise  Colet's,  129. 

England,  Flaubert  on  the  occupation 
of  Egypt  by,  106  ;  visited  by  Flau- 
bert, 121. 

Ennoia,  the  woman,  88,  89. 


362 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


Faverges,  Comte  de,  character  in 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  306,  315, 
316,  322,  328,  329,  335,  337,  345- 
347. 

Felicite,  Madame  Bovary's  maid, 
171,  183. 

Feydeau,  Ernest,  135  ;  Flaubert's 
correspondence  with,  225,  226. 

Fiction,  power  of,  to  influence  the 
national  mind,  10,  li. 

'  Flamarande,'  George  Sand's  story, 
288. 

Flaubert,  Achille  Cleophas,  father  of 
Gustave,  3,  4,  37,  157;  his  mis- 
tress, 64  ;   death  of,  at  Croisset,  38. 

Caroline,  sister  of  Gustave,  27  ; 

marriage  of,  to  Hamard,  36,  38  ; 
her  death  at  Croisset,  38,  39. 

Gustave,  his  parentage,  3-5;  his 

first  letter  to  Ernest  Chevalier,  i  ; 
his  last  published  letter  to  the  same, 
2  ;  school  days  of,  6  ;  his  simplicity 
in  childhood,  5,  6 ;  his  description 
of  his  father  in  'Madame  Bovary,' 
3,  4;  letter  to  Ernest  Chevalier 
from,  anent  his  theatre,  7  ;  early 
taste  for  literature,  7  ;  Mrs.  Ten- 
nant's  description  of,  9  ;  early  read- 
ing of,  12  ;  on  the  establishment  of 
the  censorship  of  the  stage,  13  ; 
his  letter  to  Ernest  Chevalier  in 
Paris,  16 ;  on  the  study  of  mathe- 
matics, 17 ;  goes  to  Paris  to  study 
law,  19 :  irregularity  of  his  law 
studies,  26  ;  rejected  at  the  law  ex- 
amination, 30, 3 1 ;  letter  to  Chevalier 
in  Paris,  22-24  ;  on  ambition,  28  ; 
develops  a  fit  of  economy,  28,  29  ; 
introduced  to  Victor  Hugo,  29 ; 
on  student  life  in  the  Quartier  Latin, 
30 ;  seized  with  an  hysterico-epi- 
leptic  attack,  32  ;  references  to  his 
malady,  143,  149,  223,  283  ;  letter 
to  Louis  dc  Cormenin  on  literary 
criticism,  34-36  ;  a  hero-worshipper, 
37  ;  his  letter  to  Ducamp  on  the 
death  of  his  sister  Caroline,  38-40  ; 


letter  to  Ducamp  on  death  and 
future  life,  and  his  plans  for  future 
work,  40-42  ;  his  disgust  of  middle- 
class  life,  43,  44 ;  the  two  love 
passions  of,  46  ;  love  letters  of, 
with  the  Parisian  poetess,  47-53, 
59-68 ;  his  letter  to  Mrs.  Tennant 
on  her  leaving  Paris,  65,  66 ;  on 
methods  in  study,  67,  68  ;  makes  a 
tour  through  Brittany  with  Ducamp, 
69,  et  seq ;  not  always  a  comfort- 
able fellow-traveller,  71;  and  the 
'young  phenomenon,'  71  ;  on 
churches  and  the  Lady  Chapel  of 
Pont  L'Abbe,  72,  73  ;  reflections 
on  the  tomb  of  Chateaubriand,  74  ; 
contrariness  of,  in  his  writings  and 
actions,  75,  76  ;  his  health  benefited 
by  tour  in  Brittany,  77  ;  on  style, 

77  ;  at  a  reform  dinner  in  Rouen, 

78  ;  watches  at  deathbed  of  Alfred 
de  Poittevin,  79,  80 ;  proposed 
eastern  tour  by,  82 ;  his  love  of 
mere  names,  97  ;  his  retentive 
memory,  98  ;  departs  on  his  eastern 
tour,  loi  ;  description  of  the  land- 
ing at  Alexandria,  102,  103  ;  letter 
to  Bouilhet  from  Cairo,  103,  104 ; 
visits  the  Coptic  bishop,  105  ;  on 
the  English  occupation  of  Egypt, 
106  ;  second  letter  to  Bouilhet  from 
Cairo,  106,  107  ;  makes  acquaint- 
ance of  the  Governor  of  Ibrim,  109, 
1 10  ;  incident  in  the  desert  between 
Ducamp  and,  no,  in  ;  letter  to 
his  mother  relating  his  amusements 
in  Cairo,  in,  112;  letter  to  Bouilhet 
from  Damascus  on  literary  matters, 
113,  114;  visits  Nazareth,  114; 
returns  home  from  eastern  tour, 
114  ;  letter  from  to  '  Uncle  Parain,' 
115;  letter  to  his  mother  on  the 
education  of  his  niece,  116;  his 
views  on  matrimony,  117,  118  ;  on 
marriage,  283  ;  letter  to  Bouilhet 
on  the  changes  in  eastern  life,  118, 
119;   meeting  with   English  mid- 


INDEX 


363 


shipmen  at  Athens,  119  ;  on  friend- 
ship, 119,  120;  congratulates 
Ernest  Chevalier  on  his  marriage, 
120,  121  ;  his  growing  baldness, 
120,  121;  visits  Carthage,  122; 
home  life  at  Croisset,  122-126  ;  the 
'  Leonce'  of  Madame  Colet's  '  Lui,' 
129,  133  ;  introduced  to  Madame 
Colet,  131,  132;  inquires  of 
Bouilhet  anent  'the  Muse,'  134, 
135  ;  letter  to  Madame  des  Genettes 
on  the  death  of  Madame  Colet^ 
135  ;  his  admiration  for  Madame 
Colet,  137,  138;  his  correspondence 
with  Madame  Colet,  138-155;  on 
Shakespeare,  36,  62,  147,  148  ;  re- 
vises Madame  Colet's  MS.  poem  on 
the  Acropolis,  148  ;  prosecuted  for 
the  publicationof  'Madame  Bovary, ' 
156  ;  correspondence  with  Bouilhet 
anent  material  for  'Madame  Bovary ,' 
196-198  ;  letter  to  Laurence  Pichat 
anent  'Madame  Bovary,'  198,  199; 
letter  to  Madame  Schlesinger  anent 
prosecution  of  '  Madame  Bovary,' 
199,  200;  prosecution  of,  for  publish- 
ing '  Madame  Bovary,'  199,  201  ; 
letter  to  Jules  Cloquet,  anent  his 
prosecution  over  '  Madame  Bovary,' 
201  ;  his  occupations  after  the  pub- 
lication of  Salammbo,  220  ;  corres- 
pondence with  Madame  Roger  des 
Genettes,  222,  228,  230,  231  ;  his 
correspondence  with  Mademoiselle 
Leroyer  de  Chantepie,  221-225, 
226-228,  232-234 ;  correspondence 
with  Ernest  Feydeau,  225,  226  ;  his 
labours  over  the  literary  remains  of 
Bouilhet,  238 ;  letter  to  Jules  Du- 
plan  on  Bouilhet's  death,  239  ;  letter 
to  Ducamp  after  the  death  of  Bouil- 
het, 239  ;  friendship  between  Bouil- 
het and,  239,  240  ;  his  preface  to 
Bouilhet's  posthumous  volume  of 
poems,  241-244  ;  his  letter  to  the 
municipal  council  of  Rouen,  249, 
250 :  letter  to  George  Sand  anent 


the  reviews  of  his  '  Education  Sen- 
timentale,'  251,  252  ;  his  regrets  for 
Bouilhet's    death,    254 ;     letter   to 
Edmond  de  Goncourt  on  his  loss  by 
Bouilhet's  death,  254,  255  ;  distaste 
for  politics,  255 ;  his  correspondence 
with  George  Sand  during  1870-71, 
255-268  ;  extract  from  letter  of  to 
Claudius  Popelin,    259 ;    refers  to 
Franco-Prussian  War  in  a  letter  to 
de    Goncourt,     259;    letter    from, 
to  Madame  Regnier,  261  ;  extract 
of  letter  of,  to  Madame  des  Genettes, 
268  ;  his  mother's  death,  268 ;  his 
occupations    after    the    war,    269, 
270 ;     the    literary  work   of    his 
last   years,   271,    272 ;     generosity 
of,  to  the  family  of  M.  Comman- 
ville,     270,     288;     on     Dickens's 
'  Pickwick,'  281  ;  letter  to  George 
Sand  on  death  ofTheophile  Gautier, 
281,   282;    letter  to  George  Sand 
anent    Levy   the    publisher,    284 ; 
letter   to  Madame  Genettes   anent 
Levy  the  publisher,  285 ;  his  opinion 
of  George  Sand,  285  ;   his  labours 
over  the  composition  of  '  Bouvard 
et    Pecuchet,'    287  ;    extract   from 
letter  of,  to  M.  Zola,  288 ;  solicits 
friends  for  aid  for  his  '  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  290 ;    letter  to  Guy  de 
Maupassant,  291  ;    his   opinion   of 
Herbert  Spencer,  292  ;  his  opinion 
on  Dupanloup,  292  ;  letter  from  to 
Guy  de  Maupassant  defending  him 
from  the  charge  of  immorality,  294- 
297  ;    his   method   of  working  on 
'Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  298,  299  ; 
his   death,    300;   his   'Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  305-358  ;  his  '  Madame 
Bovary,'  158-195  ;  summary  of  his 
'  Salammbo,'   202,  207  ;    his   own 
estimate   of  the   work,   207,  208 ; 
his  defence  of  the  work  against  the 
criticism  of  M.  Froehner,  208-216; 
his  comedy  'The  Candidate,' 271, 
286,  287  ;  his  '  Education  Sentimen- 


364 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


tale,' account  of,  221,  251-254;  pub- 
lication of  his  'Education  Sentimen- 
tale,'25i  ;  his 'St.  Julian, '273-280; 
his  tragedy  of  Jenner,  or  the  Dis- 
coveryofVaccine,'56-58;  analysis  of 
the  '  Temptation  of  St.  Anthony,' 
82-99 ;  liis  conception  of  St.  An- 
thony, 96  ;  his  '  Novembre,'40,  41. 

Flaubert,  Madame,  mother  of  Gustave, 
Flaubert's  letter  to,  from  Malta, 
loi,  102  ;  Flaubert's  letter  to,  from 
Cairo,  107-109;  second  letter  to, 
from  Cairo,  III,  112;  death  of,  268. 

Fontaine,  La,  296, 

Fortin,  doctor,  298. 

Fossils,  collected  by  '  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  311,  312, 

Foureau,  M. ,  character  in  '  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  306,  323,  345-347,  34^, 
357- 

France  and  Frenchmen  :  repression  of 
freedom  in  France,  11  ;  French 
least  understand  liberty,  10;  French 
poetry,  melody  of,  240 ;  French 
doctor  in  Cairo,  writer  of  tragedies, 
III. 

Franco-Prussian  war  of  1870,  252  ; 
references  to  the,  in  Flaubert's 
letters  to  George  Sand,  255-266. 

Friendship,  Flaubert  on,  119,  120. 

Froehner,  M.,  Flaubert's  reply  to  his 
criticism  of  '  Salammbo,'  208-216. 

Gangarides,  the,  97. 

Gautier,  Theophile,  23  ;  letter  from 
Flaubert  to  George  Sand  on  the 
death  of,  281,  282  ;  death  of,  269. 

Genettes,  Charles  Roger  des,  222. 

Madame  Roger  des,  Flaubert's 

correspondence  with,  222,  228,  230, 
231  ;  Flaubert's  letter  to,  on  the 
death  of  'the  Muse,'  135  ;  extract 
of  letter  of  Flaubert  to,  268  ;  Flau- 
bert's letter  to,  anent  paying  Levy 
the  publisher,  285 ;  letter  to,  on 
plot  of  'A  Simple  Soul,'  289; 
Flaubert's  remarks   to,   anent   his 


reading  for  '  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,' 
293,  294;    references  to,  270,  290. 

Geography  '  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,' 
attempt  to  teach,  350,  351. 

Geology,  study  of,  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  312.315. 

Goethe,  mentioned,  227,  234,  241, 
296,  301, 

Goncourt,  Edmond  de,  letter  from 
Flaubert  to,  on  his  loss  by  Bouil- 
het's  death,  254,  255 ;  reference 
to  Franco-Prussian  war  in  a  letter 
by  Flaubert  to,  259  ;  extract  from 
letter  of  Flaubert  to  about  state  of 
his  health,  293  ;  mentioned,  298. 

Gorju,  a  character  in  '  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  315,  320,  323,  324,  339, 

,  357- 

Guerand,  Flaubert  and  Ducamp  at 
the  fair  of,  71. 

IIamard,  a  friend  of  Flaubert,  im- 
prisonment of,  27  ;  marries  Caroline 
Flaubert,  27,  38. 

Hamilcar,  in  '  Salammbo,'  202-207. 

Hassan,  Flaubert's  Dragoman,  104, 
105. 

Heliogabalus,  Flaubert  on,  35. 

'  Herodias,'  Flaubert's,  16,  272, 

Herodotus  quoted,  50. 

Hilarion,  a  character  in  Flaubert's 
'  St.  Anthony,'  86,  89,  91,  92. 

Hippolyte,  ostler  at  the  Golden  Lion, 
in  '  Madame  Bovary,'  178. 

History,  study  of,  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  317. 

Homais,  H.,  a  character  in  'Madame 
Bovary,'  165,  168,  169,  170,  175, 
176,  178,  179,  183-186,  190,  191, 
192,  196,  197,  237. 

Homer,  Flaubert's  opinion  of,  36. 

Homeric  Poems,  the,  304. 

Homerites,  the,  97. 

Horace  mentioned,  75,  121,  296. 

Hugo,  Victor,  Flaubert's  account  of 
his  introduction  to,  29  ;  mentioned, 
12,  27,  37,  104,  137,  147,  148,  220. 


INDEX 


365 


Ibrim,  the  Governor  of,  109. 
Immorality,      Guy    de    Maupassant 

charged  with,  294. 
Isis,  the  goddess,  90. 

Jaffa,  the  smells  of,  149. 

'Jenner,  or  the  Discovery  of  Vaccine,' 

Flaubert's  tragedy  of,  56-58. 
Jeufroy,  Abbe,  character  in  '  Bouvard 

et  Pecuchet,'  306,  312,  313,   316, 

323,  326-328,  329,  331,  336,  337, 

340,  345-347,  349- 
Julie,  M'amselle,  Flaubert's  old  nurse, 

128. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  157. 
Knouphis,  87,  88. 

La  Fayette,  Marquis  de,  i. 

Lagardy,  singer,  179. 

Langlois,  13. 

Lebanon,  adoration  of  the  cedars  in, 
114. 

Lefebure,  the  philosophy  of,  294, 

Leghorn,  earthquake  at,  59,  60. 

Lemaitre,  Jules,  298. 

Leroyer  de  Chantepie,  Mademoiselle, 
Flaubert's  correspondence  with, 
221-225,  226-228,  232-234. 

Levy,  publisher  of  Bouilhet's  posthu- 
mous poems,  269,  284,  285. 

Lheureux,  M.,  character  in  *  Madame 
Bovary,'  170,  1S7,  188. 

Literature,  the  province  of,  245-248. 

'  Lui '  of  Madame  Colet,  129,  133. 

'  Lui  et  Elle,'  Louise  Colet's,  129. 

'Madame  Bovary,'  origin  of  the 
story,  100 ;  the  making  of,  196- 
198;  publication  of,  156;  sum- 
mary of  the  story  of,  158-195; 
prosecution  of,  as  immoral,  199- 
201  ;  effects  of  reading,  and  similar 
works,  193,  194 ;  Flaubert's  de- 
scription of  his  father  in,  3,  4  ; 
mentioned,  99,  122,  128,  129,  133, 
138,  140,  234,  237,  271,  272,  295. 


Magus,  Simon,  88,  89. 

Malta,  Flaubert's  letter  to  his  mother 
from,  loi,  102. 

Marescot,  M.,  character  in  'Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,'  306,  322, 

Marie,  Ernest  le,  friend  of  Flaubert, 
6,  20. 

Marmontel,  mentioned,  12,  56,  dT. 

Marriage,  Flaubert  on,  283  ;  '  Bou- 
vard et  Pecuchet '  on,  346,  347. 

Mathematics,  Flaubert's  distaste  for, 

17. 

Mathilde,  the  Princess,  220. 

Matho,  a  character  in  '  Salammbo,' 
203,  204,  205,  206,  218. 

Matrimony,  Flaubert's  views  on,  117, 
118. 

Maupassant,  Guy  de,  letter  from 
Flaubert  to,  announcing  commence- 
ment of  '  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,' 
287 ;  invited  to  Croisset,  298 ; 
Flaubert's  letter  to,  about  women, 
etc.,  291  ;  threatened  prosecution 
of,  for  immorality,  294  ;  mentioned, 
8,  157,  219,  270. 

Medicine,  study  of,  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  309. 

Melie,  housemaid,  character  in  '  Bou- 
vard et  Pecuchet,'  320,  330,  331, 

357. 
Messalians,  the,  87. 
Mignot,  Father,  2,  5. 
Milton,  mentioned,  245. 
Mirag,  the,  97. 
Moliere,    mentioned,    57,    113,    151, 

296. 
Montaigne,  mentioned,  12. 
Monville,  near  Rouen,  waterspout  at, 

44. 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  129,  133,  142. 
Myrmecoleo,  the,  97. 

Narcisse,  Flaubert's  servant,  128. 
Narrhavas,  a  character  in,  '  Salamm- 
bo,' 206,  207. 
Nazareth,  Flaubert  at,  114. 
Nebuchadnezzar,  86. 


366 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


Nero,  Flaubert's  opinion  of,  35. 
Nicolaitans,  the,  87. 
'  Novembre,'  a  romance  of  Flaubert's, 
40,  41. 

Cannes,  the  god,  89,  90. 
Olympus,  the  gods  of,  90. 
Ophidians,  the,  88. 
Optimism,  Flaubert  on,  76. 
Orlowski,  Polish  refugee,  13. 

Pantheon  of  Rome,  121. 

Parain,  uncle,  a  relative  of  Flaubert's, 
114,  IIS,  "7>  124. 

'Paries  Champs  et  par  les  Grcves,' 
Flaubert's,  70,  72. 

Pastinaca,  the,  97. 

Paternians,  the,  87. 

Pei'rault,  mentioned,  296. 

Petit,  schoolmaster,  character  in 
'Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  323,  325- 
328. 

Phrenology,  study  of  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  349,  350. 

Physiology,  study  of,  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet, '  308. 

Pichat,  Laurence,  editor  of  '  Revue 
de  Paris,'  178,  183  ;  letter  to,  from 
Flaubert  anent  '  Madame  Bovary,' 
198,  199. 

Pinard,  council  for  the  prosecution 
against  the  author  of  '  Madame 
Bovary,'  292,  293. 

Planche,  Gustave,  27. 

Plato,  mentioned,  302. 

Play-writing  commenced  by  '  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,'  321,  322. 

Poittevin,  Alfred  de,  friend  of  Flau- 
bert, 6,  8,  227,  270 ;  account  of,  43, 
44 ;  inspires  Flaubert's  '  St.  An- 
thony,' 99 ;  death  of,  79  ;  his  death- 
bed watched  by  Flaubert,  79,  80. 

Politics,  study  of  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  329,  330, 
354. 

Pompey's  Pillar,  115. 

Pont  L'Abbc,  the  Lady  Chapel  of,  73. 


Popelin,  Claudius,  extract  from  letter 

of  Flaubert  to,  259. 
Pradier,  sculptor  in  Paris,  25,  29,  46, 

60,    137;    introduces    Flaubert   to 

Madame  Colet,  131,  132. 
Presteros,  the,  97. 
Prevost,  the  Abbe,  123. 
Priscillathe  prophetess,  87. 
Priscillanians,  the,  87. 
Prussia,  Flaubert  on  the  war  with, 

252,  255-266. 
Pyramids,  visited  by  Flaubert,   104, 

106. 

()UARTIER  Latin,  Flaubert's  account 
of  student  life  in  the,  30. 

Rabbetana,  a  goddess,  204. 

Rabelais,  mentioned,  12,  151,  245, 
296,  301,  302. 

Railway  between  Paris  and  Rouen, 
opening  of,  26. 

Regnier,  Madame,  letter  from  Flaubert 
to,  261. 

Religion,  Flaubert  on,  228-230,  232, 
233 ;  study  of,  commenced  by 
'  Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  337-347' 

Renan,  Flaubert  on,  268. 

Revoil,  Antoine,  father  of  Madame 
Colet,  131. 

'Revue  de  Paris,'  publication  of 
'  Madame  Bovary '  in,  156, 

Rolet,  Mere,  169. 

Rome,  visited  by  Flaubert,  121. 

Rouault,  Pere,  a  character  in '  Madame 
Bovary,'  160. 

Rouen,  Bouilhet  elected  librarian  of, 
240  ;  Flaubert's  letter  to  the  Muni- 
cipal Council  of,  249,  250;  window 
in  the  Cathedral  of,  suggests  the 
story  of  St.  Julian  to  Flaubert,  280. 

Rousseau,  Flaubert's  opinion  of,  231  ; 
mentioned,  296,  299. 

Sachalites,  the,  97. 
'St.  Anthony,' Temptation  of,  Flau- 
bert's original  suggestion  of,  36, 280 ; 


INDEX 


367 


Flaubert's  conception  of  what  it 
should  be,  96 ;  analysis  of  the,  82- 
99 ;  should  rightly  be  named  a 
'Vision,'  98;  mentioned,  14,  15, 
43.  77,  107,  216,  220,  222,  229, 
237,  255.  256,  263,  271,  280. 

St.  Eustace,  272,  273. 

St.  Hubert,  272,  273. 

'  St.  Julian  I'Hospitalier,'  Flaubert's, 
16,  98,  99,  114,  271,  272;  summary 
of  the  story  of,  273-280. 

St.  Peter's,  Rome,  121. 

Sainte-Beuve,  Charles- Augustin,  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  anent '  Salammbo, ' 
207,  208  ;  Flaubert  on,  35. 

Salammbo, outlines  of  thestoryof,  202, 
207  ;  Flaubert's  own  estimate  of, 
207,  208 ;  his  defence  of  the  work, 
against  the  criticism  of  M.  Froehner, 
208-216  ;  mentioned,  16,  83,  98, 
99,  122,  133,  229,  230,  272. 

Sand,  George,  mentioned,  20, 32,  129, 
137,  164,  230,  289;  Madame 
Colet's  hatred  of,  130;  Flaubert's 
letter  to,  anent  his  *  Education 
Sentimentale,'25i,  252;  letter  from 
Flaubert  to,  on  his  loss  in  Bouilhet's 
death,  254 ;  Flaubert's  correspond- 
ence with  during  the  years  1870-71, 
255-268 ;  letter  from  Flaubert  on 
death  of  Theophile  Gautier,  281, 
282 ;  advises  Flaubert  to  marry, 
282 ;  Flaubert's  opinion  of,  285  ; 
Flaubert's  last  letters  to,  285-2S8; 
letter  from  Flaubert  to,  anent  Levy 
the  publisher,  284  ;  death  of,  269. 

Sassetti,  Corsican  servant  of  Flau- 
bert's, loi,  102,  103,  108. 

Schabarim,  character  in  '  Salammbo,' 
203,  204,  205,  206. 

Schlesinger,  Madame  Maurice,  letter 
from  Flaubert  to,  199,  200. 

Schools  in  France,  6,  il. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  Flaubert  on,  281. 

Sentimental  Education.  See  Educa- 
tion Sentime    ale. 

'  Servante,    La,'  of  Madame   Colet, 


(poem),  135;  of  Madame  Colet, 
(prose),  133,  135. 

Shakespeare,  Flaubert's  opinion  of 
36,  62,  147,  148  ;  mentioned,  12, 
38,  99,  151,  234,  245,  296,  301, 
302  ;  Merry  Wives  of,  75. 

Sheba,  the  Queen  of,  86. 

Simon,  M.  Jules,  285 . 

Smar,  14,  15. 

Socrates,  33. 

'  Souvenirs   Litteraires '  of  Ducamp, 

134- 
Spencer,  Herbert,  Flaubert's  opinion 

of,  292. 
Spendius,  a  character  in  '  Salammbu,' 

203,  204,  205, 

Sphinx,  Flaubert  at  the,  104. 
Spinoza,  mentioned,  227. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  247. 
'Story  of  a  simple  soul,'  Flaubert's, 

99,  271,  272,  289. 
Study,   Flaubert  on   method  in,  67, 

68. 
Style,  Flaubert's  care  about,  77. 

Tanit,  the   Phoenician  Venus,  203, 

204,  207. 
Tatianians,  the,  87. 
'Temptation  of  St.  Anthony.'   See  'St. 

Anthony.' 

Tennant,  Mrs.,  her  account  of  Flau- 
bert, 9 ;  Flaubert's  letter  to,  on  her 
leaving  Paris,  65,  66  ;  visits  Flau- 
bert, 290. 

TertuUian,  introduced  into  Flaubert's 
'St.  Anthony,'  87. 

Thackeray,  247  ;  traces  of  revolt 
against  literary  despotism  in,  12. 

'Thompson  of  Sunderland,'  115. 

Topazus,  the  island  of,  97. 

Touche,  character  in  '  Bouvard  et 
Pecuchet,'  332,  333,  340,  347. 

Tourgenieff,  intimacy  of,  with  Flau- 
bert, 270. 

Tragelaphus,  the,  97. 

'Trois  Contes,'  of  Flaubert,  271. 

Trouville,  a  fishing  village,  9. 


368 


LIFE  OF  GUSTAVE  FLAUBERT 


Valentinians,  the,  87. 

Valesians,  the,  87. 

Vancorbeil,  Dr.,  characterin  'Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet,'  306,  307,  322. 

Vaubyessard,  the  Marquis  de,  163. 

Victor  and  Victorine,  children  in 
'Bouvard  et  Pecuchet,'  347-357. 

Vigny,  de,  his  work  on  '  Military  Ser- 
vitude and  Greatness,'  66. 

Villele,  M.  de,  297. 

VillemessaJ       editor   of  the   Figaro^ 

Virgil,  mentioned,  I2I,  296,  304, 
Voltaire,    Flaubert's   opinion  on  the 


prose  of,   36 ;   mentioned,   37,    56, 
107,  108,  119,  231,  296. 
'  Voltaire  '    (newspaper),   mentioned, 
296. 

Wordsworth,  mentioned,  38,  127. 

Yonville-l'Abbaye,   the  landscape 

around,  165. 
Yonville,  agricultural  show  at,  176. 
Yuk,  the  god  of  the  grotesque,  15. 

Zola,  Emile,  mentioned,  270,  298 ; 
extract  from  letter  of  Flaubert's  to, 
288. 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  Her  Majesty 
at  the  Edinburgh  University  Press 


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